Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked efforts by Senate Democrats to pass an assault weapons ban and universal background checks legislation after the United States over the weekend broke the record for the most mass shootings in a single year.
Republican Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) objected to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) request for unanimous consent to pass the assault weapons ban, despite the pleas of Democratic senators who took to the Senate floor to cite the harrowing statistics of gun violence in America.
“The scourge of gun violence in America is a national crisis. The American people are sick and tired of enduring one mass shooting after another. They’re sick and tired of vigil and moments of silence for family, friends, classmates, coworkers,” Schumer argued on the Senate floor.
The assault weapons ban, originally sponsored by the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), would ban semiautomatic rifles with pistol grips, forward grips and folding or telescoping stocks, as well as rifles outfitted with grenade launchers, barrel shrouds or threaded barrels to allow for noise and flash suppressors to be attached.
But Barrasso argued that the Democratic-drafted bill would infringe on the Second Amendment and deprive law-abiding gun owners of an important liberty.
“Americans have a constitutional right to own a firearm. Every day, people across Wyoming responsibly use their Second Amendment rights to keep and bear arms,” he said. “Democrats are demanding that the American people give up their liberty.”
He said that Democrats are trying to ban many types of semiautomatic firearms “because of the way they look.”
He asserted that popular rifles such as AR-15s “work the same way as popular shotguns and other rifles used for hunting and personal protection.”
“The Second Amendment is freedom’s essential safeguard. Without it, there can be no liberty and there can be no security. So Mr. President, I object.”
Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy (Conn.) later stood up on the floor to ask for unanimous consent to pass legislation to require universal background checks for firearms purchases.
“We don’t have more mental illness in this country, we don’t spend less money on law enforcement, we don’t have angrier people, we have more guns, and we are much more permissive in this country about allowing felons, dangerous people, to get their hands on guns,” he said.
A Gallup poll conducted in June 2022 found that 92 percent of Americans favor requiring background checks for all firearm sales.
“This just feels like a test of democracy. It really does. Like, how does democracy survive if 90 percent of Americans, 90 percent of Republicans, 90 percent of Democrats want something, and we can’t deliver it?” Murphy asked before he asked for unanimous consent to pass the background checks bill.
Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee took to the floor immediately to object.
“I want to note at the outset we’re not asked to vote in this chamber on polling questions. We vote on legislation,” he said.
He said the legislation to expand background checks “has some real problems with it.”
“This is not solely about transactions involving guns at gun stores. This is about the father who wishes to pass down a hunting rifle to his son or the friend who wants to lend a shotgun to his neighbor who is in need of protection at the time,” Lee said before objecting to Murphy’s request.
The MCX pistol with folding brace is super compact and easy to carry. IMG Jim Grant
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) has filed a notice of appeal in a case challenging its rule against pistol braces (FINAL RULE 2021R-08F). Gun Owners of America (GOA) filed a motion for summary judgment a day later.
The case, Texas v. ATF, is a joint effort between GOA, Gun Owners Foundation (GOF), and the state of Texas to take down the ATF’s pistol brace rule.
Just a day before the ATF rule was due to go into effect, Federal District Court Judge Drew Tipton for the Southern District of Texas issued a preliminary injunction (PI) for all GOA members, barring the ATF from taking enforcement actions against them. This ruling came on the heels of the Mock v. Garland Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decision that blocked enforcement of the rule on Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) members. Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) also got a preliminary injunction against the rule before the rule’s effective date.
“For these reasons, the Court GRANTS IN PART Plaintiffs’ Motion for Preliminary Injunction, (Dkt. No. 16). Defendants are ENJOINED from enforcing the Final Rule against the private Plaintiffs in this case, including its current members and their resident family members, and individuals employed directly by the State of Texas or its agencies. The preliminary injunction will remain in effect pending resolution of the expedited appeal in Mock v. Garland,” the order reads.
Since then, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has expanded the injunction to cover everyone in the nation, effectively killing the ATF’s rule. Before that happened, according to GOA, all parties agreed to the timeline in the Texas v. ATF case.
Merely one day prior to Texas and GOA submitting a motion for summary judgment, the ATF proceeded to lodge a notice of appeal with the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Many think the ATF violated the agreed-upon timeline and is trying to stall for time since the Fifth Circuit appears to be a dead end for a Bureau legal victory.
It is unlikely that the Fifth Circuit of Appeals would overturn Judge Tipton’s decision. The Fifth Circuit is openly hostile to the ATF’s use of the rule-making process.
It has ruled against the ATF’s alleged abuse of its rule-making powers in three different cases. Two of these cases deal with bump stocks (Cargill v. Garland) and frames and receivers (VanDerStok v. Garland). The third case, Mock v. Garland, is almost identical to Texas v. ATF.
GOA, GOF, and Texas were unhappy with the ATF’s actions. They called out the ATF for what they see as an obvious delay tactic. Many agree the ATF’s chances of winning in District Court are non-existent. With the expected defeat at the Fifth Circuit, the only other conceivable reason that the ATF would have to file a notice of appeal is to try to head off another nationwide injunction against its pistol brace rule that GOA and Texas requested in their motion for summary judgment.
“GOF, GOA, & Texas were DAYS away from seeking summary judgment in our lawsuit against the Biden Pistol Ban. ATF had even agreed to the timeline,” GOF posted to X (formerly Twitter). “But, at the 11th hour, appealed to the 5th Circuit (where they have already lost TWICE)—a shameless delay tactic.”
GOA’s motion for summary judgment covers the same topics as their successful PI but with even more substance and evidence. If GOA won easily on the PI and the judge continues to rely on taking cues from the Fifth Circuit, the ATF is looking down the barrel of another defeat. The Fifth Circuit has been critical of the ATF for violating the Administrative Procedures Act (APA).
The ATF has experienced multiple defeats on a cornucopia of issues, including pistol braces, force reset triggers, bump stocks, disarming Americans without due process, and frames and receivers. The only hope to save any of these cases is the Supreme Court, but that doesn’t look like a winning path in most of these legal challenges.
John is a NRA instructor and a constitutional activist; he has written about firearms and interviewed people of all walks of life. Mr. Crump lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons and can be followed on X at @crumpyss, or at www.crumpy.com.
The only thing they’re aware of is the personal information of gun owners who aren’t part of the problem. (Attorney General Rob Bonta/Facebook)
“A California appeals court [Fourth Appellate District, Division One Court of Appeal of California] ruled Friday that the state may continue sharing the personal information of gun owners with ‘gun violence’ researchers,” The Western Journal reports. “California’s Department of Justice had been permitted to share ‘identifying information of more than 4 million gun owners’ collected by the state during the background check process for firearms purchases with ‘qualified research institutions,’ ostensibly to aid in the study of gun-related accidents, suicides and violence.”
The “personal information” includes “names, addresses, phone numbers, and any criminal records, among other things.” What “other things”?
Per the bill that “authorized” this massive privacy intrusion against citizens for claiming their rights (Assembly Bill No. 173), those include “a database of gun violence restraining orders, and a database of firearm precursor parts purchases.” In other words, that will include people who have never been charged with or tried for a crime, let alone convicted, and will identify people who bought parts that may later be declared verboten.
“The DROS [Dealer Record of Sale] system and the associated AFS [Automated Firearms System] and APRF [Ammunition Purchase Records File] databases create a unique data set regarding gun and ammunition ownership not available anywhere else. Researchers in California have used this data to conduct empirical research regarding firearm-related violence for some time.”
“The court’s decision is a victory in our ongoing efforts to prevent gun violence,” Attorney General Rob Bonta Bonta crowed in a media release. “AB 173’s information-sharing serves the important goal of enabling research that supports informed policymaking aimed at reducing and preventing firearm violence. Research and data are vital in our efforts to prevent gun violence in California and provide a clear path to help us save lives.”
Left unsaid is how Bonta’s DOJ incompetently keeping databases on gun owners has already demonstrably exposed and endangered them.
“California’s Department of Justice mistakenly posted the names, addresses and birthdays of nearly 200,000 gun owners on the internet because officials didn’t follow policies or understand how to operate their website,” the Associated Press reported last December. California Rifle and Pistol Association President Chuck Michel “noted the leaked data likely included information from people in sensitive positions — including judges, law enforcement personnel and domestic violence victims — who had sought gun permits.”
As for who the “researcher” is privy to the data, per AB 173:
“This bill would name the center for research into firearm-related violence the California Firearm Violence Research Center at UC Davis. The bill would generally require that the information above be made available to the center and researchers affiliated with the center, and, at the department’s discretion, to any other nonprofit bona fide research institution accredited by the United States Department of Education or the Council for Higher Education Accreditation, as specified, for the study of the prevention of violence.”
That pretty much guarantees whose yard they’ll be playing in, and that suits someone who is no stranger to this correspondent just fine.
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“The court’s decision is an important victory for science,” University of California’s Davis California Firearm Violence Research Center Chair Garen Wintemute declared. It’s more like an “important victory” for “agenda science”…
Back in 2007, I warned gun show attendees that Wintemute was surreptitiously eavesdropping on and recording gun show transactions to report them to authorities and justify banning private sales. I saw this as a violation of gun show rules and recommended notifying security if anyone saw it happen. He told Slate it was a “Wanted poster” and tied that in with threats against his life and that “federal law enforcement agents recommended that I wear a ballistic vest.” There was also the false accusation that I had “outed” him. The end result was the science journal Nature felt compelled to publish a (incomplete) retraction.
Call the guy a “researcher” and a scientist” if you like. I prefer “prohibitionist” and “apparatchik.” And drama queen.
While acknowledging that “the law also insists that ‘Material identifying individuals shall only be provided for research or statistical activities and shall not be transferred, revealed, or used for purposes other than research or statistical activities, and reports or publications derived therefrom shall not identify specific individuals,’” they made another important observation:
“[A] gun owner might understandably not be thrilled that people in the business of coming up with reasons why no one should be allowed to own guns (largely true of people in the ‘gun violence research’ field) can easily know their name, address, and all the weapons, parts, and ammo they bought legally. What’s more, nothing in the law as written applies any stern level of oversight or punishment over misuse of the information.”
That “misuse” can be deliberate by activists gone wild or due to lax/incompetent security protocols. And it’s not like sensitive and supposedly secure government systems at the highest levels can’t be breached and hacked by anyone, from cyber criminals to foreign enemies. It’s not like names, addresses, and lists don’t have real-world street value, and it would be just like the prohibitionists to have their efforts actually increase violence and its incentives.
It also looks like it might be a good way for someone with list access and an agenda to call in an anonymous tip and give police “probable cause” for sending out militarized confiscation teams. It’s not like law enforcement won’t do so with information targeting owners of previously registered but now prohibited items.
A truism about “gun control” laws is that criminals don’t obey them, and they end up infringing on those who have. A case in point is 1968’s Haynes v. U.S., in which the Supreme Court (correctly, if you think about it) decided that forcing a convicted felon to register an NFA weapons he was prohibited by law from possessing violated his Fifth Amendment-recognized right against self-incrimination. So, oath-breaker Bonta’s vaunted database, relied on by the Davis gun show mole and his gaggle of anti-gun eggheads, by design, does not include the very reprobates initiating the lion’s share of the “gun violence” they’re purporting to “study”—California’s armed-to-the-teeth criminals who get their guns the old-fashioned way, by breaking the law.
It’s all Kabuki theater designed to divvy up the tax plunder and subject a population they hold in contempt (and, truth be known, fear) – gun owners – to more demoralizing in-your-face harassment.
There’s another break afforded exclusively to criminal suspects, the reading of their “Miranda rights.” Noting another well-documented prohibitionist tactic, declaring what was once legal to now be banned, gun owners buying what could be prohibited later should be advised that whatever they admit to on a required registration form can and will be used against them in a court of law if the Democrats get their way.
From the looks of things, Venezuelan immigrant Manuel Oliver doesn’t want a global government to even allow citizens in the land that took him in to have revolvers. (Change the Ref/Twitter/X)
“If the US can’t fix its gun policy, maybe an international lawsuit can,” attorney and Global Action on Gun Violence (GAGV) President Jonathan Lowy declares in an opinion piece in The Boston Globe. “Lax US gun policy has caused an international public health and safety crisis, and blatantly violates human rights laws.”
Lowy, former Chief Counsel and VP Legal for Brady, “filed papers … under the Foreign Agents Registration Act to provide legal and consulting services to the government of Mexico and plans to work with other nations on similar efforts,” Time reported in 2022. “Lowy has already worked with the government of Mexico and lawyers in Canada to file three lawsuits against U.S. gunmakers in the last four years.” (The Mexican government argued that the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) does not extend to damages caused in Mexican territory and tiled an appeal after its $10B complaint was dismissed in a Boston federal court last year).
“Joaquin Oliver v USA was filed in the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, an independent legal body of the Organization of American States,” New York advertising agency Zulu Alpha Kilo announced in September. “The lawsuit argues that Inter-American human rights law requires the United States to prevent firearms manufacturers, distributors, and dealers from recklessly making and selling guns in ways that cause deaths and injuries.
“The US, like other nations, is obligated to protect the exercise of these human rights; a State cannot simply tolerate its people to be systematically and repeatedly deprived of their lives,” the publicity release elaborated. “The suit explains that US gun policies and the Supreme Court’s Second Amendment decisions are inconsistent with the human right to live that the US is required to respect, and enable the gun industry to profit from crime throughout the region.”
The ones truly profiting, of course, are corrupt Mexican officials and their cartel patrons, who aren’t getting actual military equipment and grenades from U.S. gun shops and onesie-twosie “straw purchasers.”
That Lowy’s shakedown effort is being managed by professional ad agency spin doctors says much in terms of Astroturf vs. grassroots. Gun owners have seen before the misinformation that results from high production value “PSAs” representing themselves as reliable documentation instead of what they really are – scripted commercials engineered to get the viewers to “buy” something. So where’s the money coming from?
At this point, it’s not that obvious. A Who.Is registrar search shows the GAGV domain hidden behind a proxy, and its IRS ruling is so new that no tax documents are posted yet on the Guidestar nonprofit reporting website. It is shown there to be a Washington D.C. entity, and a business filings search at DC.gov CorpOnline shows Lowy operating at the same address as the Violence Policy Center. They’re the ones who advocate exploiting public ignorance to gin up mob demands for gun bans:
“The weapons’ menacing looks, coupled with the public’s confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons—anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun—can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons.”
So much for Lowy and his new lawfare group. What about Manuel Oliver, the plaintiff?
He and his wife had their child Joaquin brutally taken from them. Those of us with children who have not suffered such a soul-eviscerating loss can only imagine the terror and agony they have had to endure and will be forced to live with every day for the rest of their lives.
With that in mind, all people of good conscience will naturally feel sympathy and would offer comfort if we could. And with that acknowledged, our sympathy does not give sufferers leave to lay claim to our rights, especially when doing so serves the interests of violence monopolists and power interests obsessed with disarming their countrymen.
We’ve heard their arguments and we reject them. The Parkland monster, who passed a much-ballyhooed “background check,” was nonetheless known to authorities and exploited an ostensible “gun-free” zone “defended” by a school resource officer who sheltered himself outside the building while his young charges were being slaughtered.
They’ve heard our arguments and rejected them. Our solutions are mutually exclusive. We can’t all get along.
“If the US can’t fix its gun policy, maybe an international lawsuit can. It’s time to change the game!” Oliver repeated Lowy’s assertion. And we can see from other posts in his account some of the “gun policies” he means to “fix.”
He’s against allowing Lake City ammunition to be sold to the civilian market. He spreads the meme that the NRA and the GOP (and their tens of millions of policy supporters) are devils. He calls Gov. Ron De Santis (and by default his supporters) “political rats.” We could go on all day.
It’s existential with this guy. He wants it all. He won’t take “No.” And there can be only one.
He understands that and fights that way. He was arrested for disrupting a House meeting, but got handled with kid gloves and only issued a citation. Those of us who aren’t useful to Democrats can see what “obstruction of an official proceeding” and conspiracy charges can result in when the government wants to press charges.
Sorry, but this is where sympathy gets replaced with resolve. When you take it out on me and mine by going after what is ours and not yours, you invite being repelled as certainly as any other criminal, tyrant wannabe, or political swindler. Hands off the Second Amendment!
The same goes for the OAS and its Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, both of which have no authority, legal, moral, or otherwise, to impose their diktats and override “the supreme Law of the Land.”
Like the UN, they presuppose rights come from the government, as opposed to being preexisting. Their “American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man,” with “rights” others are forced to provide, and “duties” (“to obey the law, to serve the community and the nation, to pay taxes”), whether just or not, is a blueprint for codifying “legal” slavery.
It could be argued that the OAS hand in opening the Darien Region in Panama (now being overrun by hordes from its member states on their way to the U.S.) ensures continued lawlessness and human rights violations, and the continued unchecked invasion and attack on U.S. sovereignty guarantees that when it comes to armed violence, we — and they — ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
They want to play hardball, let’s.
Per the Congressional Research Service, “The United States hosts the OAS headquarters in Washington, DC, and is the largest financial contributor to the organization, providing an estimated $53.2 million in FY2023… The 118th Congress is now considering the Biden Administration’s FY2024 budget request, which includes $42.6 million for the U.S. assessed contribution to the OAS and $8.0 million in voluntary contributions for OAS-managed democracy promotion and economic development programs in the hemisphere.”
Per the Constitution, “All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives,” and the House is now under the nominal control of the Republicans, who largely owe their majority to their gun owner constituents.
There’s room for pressure there. Demand they apply it.
The Lawsuit for Survival video follows, asking the non sequitur question “Does someone else’s ‘right’ to a gun outweigh your right to live?” Note on YouTube it says “Comments have been turned off.”
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.
An agreement between the Army and one of the nation’s largest ammunition manufacturers is receiving new scrutiny because of a little-known provision allowing a government facility to produce hundreds of millions of rounds for the retail market.
Over more than a decade, contracts between the Pentagon and a series of private companies have permitted an Army site, the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant, to become one of the world’s largest commercial suppliers of cartridges for AR-15-style guns.
Built during World War II near Kansas City, Mo., to supply the U.S. military, the plant has in recent years directed a majority of its production toward the commercial market, including sales to retailers, law enforcement agencies and foreign governments.
A New York Times investigation published this month traced rounds from Lake City to a dozen mass shootings and many other crimes across the country since 2012.
After the Times article, several members of Congress questioned the benefits of the Army’s arrangement with Olin Winchester, the current contractor, and demanded more information from the Army.
In a letter to the Army Secretary on Friday, Representative Robert Garcia, a Democrat from California, said that “federal subsidies may be artificially increasing the availability of ammunition in the civilian marketplace and contributing to serious violence by private citizens.”
The letter continued, “This raises serious questions about the role the Department of the Army has played in subsidizing the firearms industry and the level of oversight that the Department has exercised in supporting the plant’s operations.”
Mr. Garcia cited The Times’s reporting, as well as a subsequently published Bloomberg article about Lake City.
Another Democratic member of the House, Betty McCollum of Minnesota, also expressed concern about “the disturbing use” of Lake City ammunition in mass shootings.
“More questions need to be asked and answered about how this ammunition is being marketed to the American public,” she said in a statement. “I will be requesting a briefing from the Army on how the contracts are issued at this plant.”
While the Army has been public about the production of commercial ammunition at Lake City, it has obfuscated the scale, arguing that the information is confidential and can be released only by the contractor. That secrecy has prevented substantive public oversight of the contract.
The Army says that the arrangement, which requires contractors to maintain the ability to produce around 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition a year, is vital for national security and has saved taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. The Pentagon has invested more than $860 million in improving and maintaining the plant over the past two decades, The Times reported earlier.
The Times investigation found that Lake City rounds, which are typically stamped with the plant’s initials, “LC,” were used in massacres including at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo.; a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas; a high school in Parkland, Fla.; and an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. They have also turned up in a variety of other criminal investigations, from robberies to the murder of police officers. Authorities have seized the rounds from drug dealers, biker gangs, violent felons and rioters at the U.S. Capitol.
Earlier this month Mr. Garcia, along with Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, introduced a bill aimed at putting more controls on ammunition sales — which are largely unregulated — by requiring sellers to obtain a federal license and to conduct background checks on buyers. It would also limit bulk sales of ammunition and prevent so-called straw purchases, in which a buyer with a clean record turns around and sells to someone else.
In a statement, Ms. Warren criticized the Lake City contract and called for “meaningful oversight” by Congress.
“It’s unconscionable for the U.S. government to be in the business of making military-grade ammunition to sell to civilians,” she said.
The revelations have also drawn outrage from gun control advocates and families of shooting victims.
Fred Guttenberg, the father of a high school student killed in Parkland, Fla., wrote on social media, “To learn Lake City Rounds like this were possibly used to kill my daughter & the sale may have been subsidized by the US Govt is hard to comprehend.”
The Trace – former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun propaganda factory – has proven once again it is completely devoid of ethics and reliable only as a source of fake news.
The Trace wants the public to believe it’s an actual newsroom comprised of actual journalists. It calls itself “The only newsroom dedicated to covering gun violence.” Staffers refer to themselves as journalists, rather than anti-gun activists who are paid by Bloomberg to create his propaganda. The Trace and Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety even share the same president, John Feinblatt.
A Trace story published Thursday titled “Shoot, Don’t Kill,” extolls the benefits of less-than-lethal technology by examining several weapons made by Byrna Technologies, Inc., which use a 12-gram CO2 cartridge to launch .68 caliber projectiles at approximately 330 feet-per-second.
“Users can also opt for ammo loaded with tear gas or oleoresin capsicum, an extract of hot peppers, which can induce nausea, difficulty breathing, and a terrible burning in the throat, lungs, and eyes,” the story states.
The Trace story quotes Byrna’s founder, president and chief executive officer, Bryan Ganz. However, on Friday, Ganz told the Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project that he had never even heard of the Trace until the story appeared Thursday morning. The freelance writer who wrote the story claimed it would appear in a different publication.
“Originally, he said it was supposed to be published in Wired magazine,” Ganz said Friday. “But once we gave him the quotes, we had no control over where the article was published.”
The story was written by Ted Alcorn, who describes himself in the story as an “independent journalist whose reporting has appeared in numerous publications including the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.” Alcorn’s bio also shows he was “the founding research director of Everytown for Gun Safety and a policy analyst in the New York City mayor’s office.”
Until he saw it Thursday morning, Ganz had no idea his story would appear on one of the leading websites of the gun ban industry.
“Our attitude is that the more people who discuss it, the better, I guess,” Ganz said.
Alcorn used a bit too much editorial license and took things a bit too far, Ganz said, especially when he implied that gun owners would somehow realize that their firearms were “problematic” and switch to his weapons for their reduced lethality.
“It’s easy to see why gun owners might perceive a less lethal offering as an admission that traditional guns are problematic. But over the last century, the primary use of firearms has changed,” the story states. “Lethality was essential when they were mainly tools for hunting animals or national defense, but now nearly three-quarters of people who own guns say they do so for self-protection against other humans.”
“I never said anything like that,” Ganz said. “I support the Second Amendment, and I’ve carried concealed for years. I’ve been a gun owner my entire life.”
About Lee Williams
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Lee Williams, who is also known as “The Gun Writer,” is the chief editor of the Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project. Until recently, he was also an editor for a daily newspaper in Florida. Before becoming an editor, Lee was an investigative reporter at newspapers in three states and a U.S. Territory. Before becoming a journalist, he worked as a police officer. Before becoming a cop, Lee served in the Army. He’s earned more than a dozen national journalism awards as a reporter, and three medals of valor as a cop. Lee is an avid tactical shooter.
Ben Shapiro made a post that highlighted some of that cluelessness from Joe Biden. It’s just astonishing how Biden sits in such a position of power and is always spouting off about guns yet knows next to nothing. He attacked “semi-automatic weapons,” saying they had no socially redeeming value — without realizing that most everyday handguns are semi-automatic. The people who protect him every day carry them, but that’s allowed because Joe is special. You ordinary Americans would not allowed to protect yourselves with those same weapons if Joe Biden had his way.
But what added to the overall ignorance was “journalist” Gretchen Carlson’s response to Shapiro’s post about the AR-15. Carlson has worked for CBS and Fox, yet that doesn’t mean that she knows anything. This may be one of the dumbest posts about the AR-15 that you’re likely to see.
“Ordinary people didn’t have AR-15s before 2004,” Carlson claimed.
“They’re not some time-honored American tradition, they’re a recent mistake that we could fix and save thousands of lives in the process.”
Oh my, how wrong can you be?
Carlson got whacked with a Community Note pointing out how wrong she was about people not having such guns before 2004: “For more than a half-century, the AR-15 has been popular among gun owners, widely available in gun stores and, for many years, even appeared in the Sears catalog.”
Indeed, it’s been available to civilians since it was made in 1959.
Yes, Gretchen, the right to bear arms is a “time-honored American tradition” (in addition to being a protected Constitutional right). You don’t get to decide what guns people can and cannot have, particularly when you, like Joe Biden, don’t have any idea what you are talking about.
The perception of the AR-15 is manipulated by the liberal obsession with it and their fixation on mass shootings. But as a percentage of those who are killed with guns, rifles are a very small percentage, and AR-15s are a percentage of that percentage. So this fixation is not based in reality, it’s based on the belief that somehow the AR-15 is some evil weapon/machine gun that can kill more people faster, without understanding it’s a rifle that fires one bullet per trigger pull. The AR-15 is also one of the most popular rifles in the country, with millions in circulation. But let not reality interfere with leftist propaganda, it’s about “Alinsky-izing” the rifle.
Carlson’s post went viral because it was so incredibly bad. The internet let her have it with a huge ratio.
