Once upon a time, the Daily Kos was the publication for the left. It’s faded a bit from that high point, but they still publish a lot of stuff, and that includes the occasional call for gun control.
Which is to be expected, really. This is kind of their crowd, and if they didn’t say something from time to time, they might alienate what’s left of their audience.
The Daily Kos is a little weird, though. They have a blogging platform where just anyone can publish stuff, then they have their staff. I generally ignore the community posts unless there’s something particularly worth addressing, but today’s piece comes from one of their staff writers, and boy is it a doozy.
Let’s start with the headline for a moment: “Even after 50 mass shootings this year, Trump says guns aren’t a problem.”
I bet you can guess where they got their numbers from. We’ll get there in a second.
The Trump administration has scrubbed an advisory on gun violence from the official website of the Department of Health and Human Services. The vital health warning was issued in 2024 by then-Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, and the decision to bury it comes just as the United States experienced its 50th mass shooting of the calendar year so far.
“By removing this important public health advisory with lifesaving resources, President Trump has chosen to prioritize gun industry profits over protecting kids and families,” Emma Brown, executive director of the gun violence prevention group GIFFORDS, said in a release.
According to the Gun Violence Archive, the most recent mass shooting occurred on March 15. Four people were shot in that incident in Shreveport, Louisiana—including two people who died. The archive has catalogued 2,899 gun deaths so far in 2025. Of those, 246 were children ages 17 and under.
So, I went and looked at the Gun Violence Archive.
We’ve talked a lot about the terrible way GVA defines a mass shooting. There is no consistent definition, of course, but GVA includes merely those who are wounded, which inflates the number and makes it appear far worse than it actually is.
The federal government defines mass murder as three or more people killed. Others, such as the AP, define mass killings as four or more people killed excluding the perpetrator.
The AP has three mass killings all year. One is the terrorist driving a car into a crowd in New Orleans at New Year’s and two others are domestic murder-suicides.
Looking at three or more dead, GVA only has two that remotely qualify. One is one of the murder-suicides I mentioned–strangely, they missed the other–and another is an incident that raises questions. They say three people were killed, but only two are reported as dead in the source they cite. I’m not sure where they got three from, though it’s possible they have additional sources.
That one has the feel of a gang-related incident or something like that, but without more evidence, I can’t say it is for certain.
Either way, as most people think of them, there have most definitely not been 50 mass shootings.
Moving on, though, that’s not the only thing the writer got wrong.
“HHS and the Office of the Surgeon General are complying with President Trump’s Executive Order on Protecting Second Amendment Rights,” HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon told CNN when asked about the decision to purge the advisory.
Trump’s executive order, released Feb. 7, instructs the federal government to assess Biden administration actions and policies that would “infringe” on Second Amendment protections.
But the advisory in question does not call for any rights to be curtailed, despite the administration’s rhetoric.
Well…that’s a freaking lie.
From the link about the advisory above:
- Firearm risk reduction strategies, such as:
- Requiring safe and secure firearm storage, including child access prevention laws;
- Implementing universal background checks and expanding purchaser licensing laws;
- Banning assault weapons and large capacity magazines for civilian use;
- Treating firearms like other consumer products, including requiring safety testing or safety features;
- Implementing effective firearm removal policies when individuals are a danger to themselves or others; and
- Creating safer conditions in public places related to firearm use and carry.
Mandatory storage laws, universal background checks, banning so-called assault weapons and standard capacity magazines, mandating “safety features” that will potentially inhibit the effectiveness of the weapon, red flag laws, and curtailing concealed carry are all efforts to curtail our rights.
Oh, I get that someone who writes for The Daily Kos wouldn’t recognize any of them as such, but that’s really because far too many anti-gun voices live in bubbles. They don’t to associate with us icky gun people. They don’t want to learn why we feel a certain way, why we oppose certain laws, or why we claim that guns aren’t the problem.
They’re not.
The problem is people, and that’s what needs to be addressed. What’s more, it’s not the weapon in the case of any other kind of attack, as we noted earlier today. Why is it suddenly the weapon when it’s a gun? Are guns cursed objects that drive their owners insane until they engage in some kind of mass killing? If so, most of the 400 million firearms in the United States must be broken.
Is the cursed gun in the room with us now?
The Daily Kos, both staff writers and the general anti-gun public, needs daily doses of reality, because I haven’t seen anything from them that remotely reflected the real world.
Read the full article here
