Even when they are demonstrably wrong.
To be clear, neither political party or ideological side has a monopoly on the truth, but the current White House continually attempts to sell talking points on gun control that are clearly false. Here’s just the latest example.
On Monday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told the assembled media that thus far this year, on average, there has been more than one mass shooting in the U.S. each day.
With no supporting evidence, she declared, “According to leading accounts, we witnessed the 201st mass shooting in the country this year. That means we are averaging more than one a day.”
As Monday was the 127th day of 2023, that is quite a claim. If her data were correct, that would mean there have been closer to two per day since Jan. 1. And she is far from the only prominent voice to endorse such blatantly false figures.
Just the day before, her boss made the same mistake. President Joe Biden on Sunday released a statement asserting that “communities have suffered roughly 200 mass shootings” this year. Again, this is nowhere near the truth by accepted definitions of mass shootings.
According to the database compiled by the Associated Press/USA Today/Northeastern University, there were 19 incidents matching the generally agreed upon definition of the term between Jan 1 and May 2 this year. The AP and others define a mass shooting as killings that involve four or more fatalities not including the shooter.
That is also the standard applied by the FBI.
It has been said before but bears repeating — one mass shooting is one too many. Literally no one who defends the Second Amendment is comfortable with the number of violent incidents perpetrated by criminals in this country.
The line of demarcation comes in when one side uses patently false claims to justify stripping gun rights away from law-abiding citizens. And it is not exactly a political position to note that facts quoted by a member of either major party are incorrect.
Another example is the president’s oft-repeated misrepresentations surrounding the Second Amendment. One came in the wake of the Uvalde mass shooting last year. Speaking to reporters on Memorial Day, Biden declared yet again that the Bill of Rights did not permit ownership of cannons in 1791.
“The Second Amendment was never absolute,” he claimed. “You couldn’t buy a cannon when the Second Amendment was passed. You couldn’t go out and purchase a lot of weapons.” Up to that point, he had made that assertion at least five previous times while president.
The Washington Post, which will never be confused with being a staunch backer of gun rights, gave the statement “Four Pinocchios” in 2021, and PolitiFact labeled it “False.”
As both fact-checkers noted, the Second Amendment as the Founding Fathers worded it did not limit who could own a weapon or what types of weapons could be possessed. Far from it.
In fact, the first firearms regulations did not come into existence until 1934.
Furthermore, the Post acknowledged that the Constitution allowed Congress to grant permission to citizens to attack and seize boats and ships of countries at war with the U.S. These vessels, as the outlet noted, “obviously” contained cannons.
A new false claim is making its rounds through anti-gun politicians and the mainstream media. It is that guns are now the leading cause of death among children, overtaking vehicle accidents.
This assertion is only true if adults aged 18 and 19 are included. For the standard definition of “children,” aged 17 and under, it is incorrect. Only through skewing data to include legal adults can this new assertion hold water.
It is difficult to conduct a meaningful debate with a group that subscribes to its own set of facts. And constitutional rights are far too important for our leaders to toy around with by making up evidence as they go.
