Gun prohibition lobbying groups are attempting to drum up hysteria over a planned gathering on Capitol Hill Saturday called the “Justice for J6,” as an email blast earlier this week from anti-gun billionaire Michael Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety declared, “Far-right gun extremism is threatening our democracy.”
According to NBC News, “The Department of Homeland Security is estimating roughly 700 people will attend” the rally, which is a tiny fraction of the crowd that gathered in Washington, D.C. in January, where hundreds marched on the U.S. Capitol. The report noted that a DHS official said the agency also believes there will be similar protests in other U.S. cities, based on social media posts.
CNN is reporting that a fence will go back up around the Capitol building in anticipation of Saturday’s event.
Not to let an opportunity go to waste, Everytown foments alarm by observing, “This rally comes on the heels of a frightening trend in which elected officials are invoking armed extremism while casting doubt on the core of our democratic institutions.”
The Everytown email asserted that the organization, and its subsidiary, Moms Demand Action, “are working to end gun violence” which includes “defeating far-right extremism.” Then the email asks for a donation.
Gun prohibition lobbying groups took it hard when the White House last week withdrew the nomination of David Chipman to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The former ATF agent-turned-gun control advocate raised alarms by acknowledging his support for a ban of so-called “assault weapons,” which happen to be semi-auto modern sporting rifles that resemble military firearms. Such guns have been deliberately mis-characterized as “weapons of war.”
It hasn’t helped that some media outlets seem to have adopted the gun control lobby’s lexicon.
Writing at fastcompany.com, Talib Visram said, “Chipman represented the best shot at some long-awaited, modest form of gun control.”
Gun rights activists would dismiss such an assertion as ridiculous because there is nothing “modest” about favoring a ban on an entire class of firearms, which is what Chipman acknowledged.
NPR writer Ryan Lucas reported, “Gun violence prevention advocates called the administration’s decision…a blow to Biden’s efforts to address…an ‘epidemic’ of gun violence in the United States.”
The Second Amendment community argues that nobody wants to prevent violent crime involving firearms more than law-abiding gun owners, because they’re the ones invariably penalized for crimes they don’t commit. Calling anti-gunners “gunviolence prevention advocates” could be interpreted to mean those on the other side of the issue–gun owners–somehow favor violent crime.
There is no indication this Saturday’s rally has anything directly to do with the battle over gun rights, yet the gun prohibition lobby has tried to create that impression. Perhaps it is time for the media to ask why.
