Anniversaries are very important to many people, but particularly anti-gunners. I don’t think any amount of time is too great for them to try and use the anniversary of a shooting to push their gun control agenda.
For example, Gabby Giffords was shot, along with many others, 15 years ago on Thursday. It was a tragic shooting, of course, and no one is going to say it was acceptable, but the truth of the matter is that it was a decade and a half ago.
But for Giffords and her buddies, the anniversary is an opportunity, and they’re going to take it.
House Democrats, joined by former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, marked 15 years since the deadly mass shooting near Tucson that ended her political career with a renewed call to end gun violence with legislative action.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-New York, used the occasion on Jan. 8 to promise Democrats would pursue a ban on assault weapons and require background checks for gun sales that don’t currently receive them.
“House Democrats stand with Gabby and with all Americans who say enough is enough,” Jeffries said.
Giffords and her husband, U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Arizona, sat near him.
“Enough with the gun violence epidemic being the leading cause of death for the children of this country. Enough with mass shootings being as frequent as the common cold.”
A bit hyperbolic there, aren’t we?
I mean, the common cold affects millions directly each and every year. Even if you use the Gun Violence Archive’s warped definition, you’re still only looking at a few hundreds at most.
And by the definition that would meet most people’s expectations, you’re having a bad year if you see a dozen.
Then again, when has Jefferies ever let facts get in the way of pushing a narrative?
Giffords did not speak during the congressional observance, but in an op-ed in The Arizona Republic she recounted being shot in the head at a constituent event at a Safeway near Tucson. In a matter of seconds, a mentally disturbed gunman killed six people and wounded 13 others, including his prime target, Giffords.
“Fifteen years later, this day remains painful,” Giffords wrote. “But I channel my grief into our ongoing fight to stop other people from being shot, to end this nation’s gun violence epidemic. On this January 8th, I urge us to honor the victims by focusing on their enduring legacies, and by recognizing the Arizonans who make our state such a special place to call home — often regular people who go the extra mile to help others.”
Let’s understand that the individual in question bought a handgun, which isn’t up for ban anywhere in the country. He was disturbed, but had not been diagnosed with anything severe enough that would warrant him being denied his right to keep and bear arms under literally any proposal pushed by Giffords since the shooting. He was a problem, but it was all small-scale stuff that only looks bad in hindsight.
But that doesn’t matter, because Giffords has made her position since then very clear. While campaigning for office, she posed with so-called assault weapons to win votes, but now she’s been quoted directly as saying “no more guns.”
Because that’s the goal. It’s always been the goal. It’s what gun control is ultimately all about. In the rare case when someone goes too far, such as when New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham declared a moratorium on all lawful carry in Albuquerque, any opposition is lukewarm at best. It’s not that they disagreed with her; it’s that she went too far, too fast. They weren’t ready. They hadn’t primed the public to accept that yet.
What happened to Gabby Giffords should never have happened. I’m not going to argue otherwise.
But I’m not going to use the anniversary of her shooting to suddenly decide my rights come secondary to the will of people who also think federal agents should just allow themselves to be run over, that our borders mean nothing at all, and that we should be subject only to taking the official position from the government on any given topic.
Editor’s Note: The radical left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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