When it comes to “fake news,” there may be no better example of that than news reports that identify gun prohibition lobbying organizations such as Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety, the Seattle-based Alliance for Gun Responsibility and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America as “gun safety” groups.
According to Pew, it is members of the National Rifle Association who “are…more likely to say they have taken a gun safety course at some point – 84% of NRA members have done this, compared with 67% of gun owners who don’t belong to the NRA.”
While the NRA has been teaching firearms safety for generations, no gun control organization offers courses on safe gun handling, except, perhaps, to frown on handling guns or even having one in the home.
The Pew survey, conducted March 13-27 and April 4-18 – just before the NRA held its annual convention in Atlanta – also found that 30 percent of U.S. adults say they own a firearm. Of that group, 19 percent say they are NRA members. The organization claims some 5 million members.
Late last month, Alan Gottlieb, founder and executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation co-authored an Op-Ed piece that ran in the Tulsa World that took the gun control lobby to task over “fake news.” The criticism was aimed primarily at allegations of a “gun violence epidemic” and a gaffe by anti-gun Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe following the shooting of Congressman Steve Scalise and others at an Alexandria baseball field.
At a press briefing, McAuliffe asserted that “we lose 93 million Americans” every day to guns. He repeated that preposterous figure until someone corrected him. Hours later, Shannon Watts, founder of the anti-gun Moms Demand Action group, claimed that “93 Americans are shot and killed daily.”
“Watts is playing fast and loose with facts,” Gottlieb stated. “Approximately two-thirds of all firearms fatalities in any given year are suicides and she knows it. Watts’ carefully-worded remark combines suicide and homicide fatalities, and accidents to make it appear there is a criminal bloodbath unfolding across the landscape.”
The Pew survey noted that NRA members largely vote Republican. However, when it comes to places where gun-related violence is rampant, the hot spots are in Democrat-controlled jurisdictions such as Chicago, Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, where the body counts are alarming.
In Chicago over the July 4 holiday weekend, 102 people were shot including 15 who died, according to ABC News. The Windy City has racked up 360 homicides so far this year.
The Baltimore Sun keeps tracks of murders in that city, and so far this year, 184 people have been slain.
In the District of Columbia as of Wednesday, there had been 58 homicides, but that is down from the 68 reported at this time last year.
