In 2023, during an interview, Gabby Giffords actually said, “No more guns.” She said the quiet part out loud, and while it was kind of refreshing, the fact that there was so little backlash, particularly among the anti-gun community that swears they don’t want any such thing, was telling.
Now, her organization is close to saying it once again.
As May is Asian and Pacific Islander (or API) Heritage Month, it’s not surprising that many people choose this time to talk about their special interest as it relates to this group of Americans. While Gabby Giffords herself hasn’t said much, the organization she helped create and that bears her name has decided to release one of its reports about so-called gun violence among the Asian and Pacific Islander community.
Fair enough, I suppose. I don’t see anything magical about “gun violence” compared to other violence, but it might be a good chance to raise awareness of a group of people who might be facing some specific issues.
Except, boy, does Giffords screw up.
First, let’s understand that API folks account for a disproportionately low percentage of the prison population. They’re very law-abiding people, typically. They’re not one of the groups you might think of as a problem, even if you were inclined to ascribe criminality to superficial racial characteristics.
Yet, particularly during the COVID years, this group, particularly East Asians, were targeted for hate crimes by absolute morons who thought they had something to do with the pandemic. While China likely had a lab leak that caused the whole fiasco, it was always stupid to blame random Asians on the street for it.
So, first, while acknowledging the low homicide and “gun death” rates among API individuals, and that they were targets of hate crimes during a particularly tense moment in American history, the real problem is that the racist gun industry wasn’t racist enough.
Noticing the trend in gun buying among API communities, the gun lobby, which has long capitalized on xenophobic, racist, fear-mongering messaging, is now courting new customers. Leading members of the gun lobby have created groups and increased their marketing of firearms to the API community. And API gun owner groups have even sprouted to educate and give a new sense of community to this emerging group of gun owners.
The gun lobby’s marketing of firearms as a measure of safety in fact contradicts research that demonstrates how dangerous the presence of a gun is in a home, especially increasing the risk of firearm suicide. Studies have shown that firearm access can triple the risk of suicide. Additionally, teen and youth firearm suicide can largely be attributed to access to household firearms, often belonging to a parent or other family member. Research also demonstrates that household firearms increase the risk of homicide, including intimate partner homicides.
So the gun industry, which sees through the bogus studies that Giffords cites, was so racist that they marketed guns to a minority that was the target of violent crimes that could result in them being killed, and Giffords thinks that the ridiculous statistics should trump a real threat? Seriously?
Or, is the problem that they don’t think the API community is typically law-abiding, as a whole, for any reason other than they don’t buy guns as often as others?
Sounds kind of racist, if you ask me.
Asian and Pacific Islanders are the fastest growing racial/ethnic group in the country.As the gun lobby increasingly targets Asian and Pacific Islanders to join their ranks, our leaders must do more to enact the kinds of policies that help mitigate the risk of gun violence. Data has shown that Asian Americans across different ethnic subgroups support stronger gun safety laws and believe that gun safety is of paramount importance when voting in elections. Asian and Pacific Islanders, just like all Americans, deserve to live free from gun violence, and deserve legislators who can make this dream a reality.
So yeah, they’re saying that they don’t want people buying guns at all. Asian and Pacific Islanders, who have largely followed most laws in this country at rates higher than every other ethnic group, shouldn’t be allowed to buy guns even though they’re not a threat to anyone.
Again, it’s either really racist or they’re admitting that the problem is that anyone can buy guns. Neither is a good look, and this is an official report from Giffords, meaning that they’re speaking for the organization as a whole.
While this isn’t quite as clear as “no more guns,” it’s still incredibly problematic on so many levels, only one of which is the racism.
They acknowledge that crime among this demographic is low. They acknowledge that they were particular targets for hate-motivated violence. They acknowledge that they’re buying guns lawfully. Despite all of that, they see them buying guns–again, lawfully–as a massive problem, and we need more gun control so this law-abiding group of people who have been targeted for hate crimes can’t buy a gun to defend themselves.
It’s insane!
In a just world, Giffords would get the SPLC’s hate group label after something like this, but that’s a whole different kettle of fish to discuss.
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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