The fake news machine is out in full force since the horrific shooting in Las Vegas Sunday night. The finger has thus far been pointed at the National Rifle Association (NRA), the Republican Party, and Trump voters, which just goes to show you how desperate the political left is to politicize tragedy.
What role could the NRA have possibly played in the shooting? If your answer is “none whatsoever,” congratulations on the correct response! Even Hillary Clinton couldn’t directly blame the NRA, but pondered just how much worse things could be if the gun rights group had their way!
Our grief isn't enough. We can and must put politics aside, stand up to the NRA, and work together to try to stop this from happening again.
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) October 2, 2017
Should someone tell her that gun “silencers” don’t actually silence the sound of a firearm like in the movies? The discharge of a firearm will still be loud enough to cause ear damage with a silencer equipped if one doesn’t wear proper ear protection.
There was also a crowd of people calling for a ban on automatic weapons.
There is no rationale for automatic weapons being for sale. None. Republicans have let the country down on this-bought and sold by gun lobby https://t.co/QSS7nhkyrY
— Amy Siskind (@Amy_Siskind) October 2, 2017
My 10 year old asked me how the shooter was able to get his machine gun. I told him that pretty much anyone in the US can. 'But why daddy'?
— Boris Kodjoe (@BorisKodjoe) October 2, 2017
Lucky them, automatic weapons have been banned for decades now. The main federal law governing fully automatic weapons is called the National Firearms Act, or NFA, and was first enacted in 1934. After some revisions, the NFA currently makes it illegal for any private civilian to own any fully automatic weapons manufactured after May 19, 1986. Only registered Class 3 FFLs may make them, and then only for purchase by qualified state and federal agencies. It’s not even legal to make replacement parts for pre-1986 automatic weapons.
And that brings us to the most purposefully misleading talking point thus far, that Republicans allegedly voted earlier this year to allow the mentally ill own guns. See some of the deceptive hysteria below:
A reminder: Republicans earlier this year passed a law making it easier for the mentally ill to buy guns.
— Brett Arends (@BrettArends) October 2, 2017
Seriously, didn't the republicans just pull back a law that prevented mentally ill from buying guns? Correct me if I am wrong please
— J.G.I (@kaleijah) October 3, 2017
Remember when Republicans rolled back Obama's rule to stop the mentally ill from buying guns? https://t.co/PO2GfCB4ay
— Daily Kos (@dailykos) October 2, 2017
https://twitter.com/IrisRimon/status/914840989013020672
There’s only two possible explanations for the tweets above: They’re deliberately lying to you, or they’re just clueless.
Let’s recap the Obama-era rules they’re talking about. Did they have to do with the mentally ill obtaining firearms? Technically yes – but not in the way you think. The Obama-era regulation that Congressional Republicans succeeded in repealing back in February were regulations that the left-leaning ACLU also supported removing. Of course, you’ll see headlines like “Republicans voted to give the mentally ill guns,” but not “ACLU supports giving mentally ill guns,” because leftists would never be so intellectually honest in regards to one of their own institutions.
As the National Review reported back in February in an article that had to be titled “No, the GOP Did Not Just Repeal the Background Check System or Give Guns to the Mentally Ill” because of the insane amount of fake news, author Charles Cooke noted, “The House did indeed reverse an Obama-era rule yesterday afternoon, but that rule was neither ‘gun-buyers must obtain background checks’ nor ‘the mentally ill are barred from buying guns,’ and the measure was by no means an NRA initiative. The NRA was supportive, of course — that’s why it exists. But so was the American Civil Liberties Union. So were a host of disability groups. So was much of the medical community. And, unusually for a Second Amendment question, this one didn’t break down along the usual political lines. And why would it, given the details?”
Cooke continued, writing, “Here’s the American Association of People with Disabilities explaining what was at stake: ‘This rule would require the Social Security Administration to forward the names of all Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefit recipients who use a representative payee to help manage their benefits due to a mental impairment to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).’ Or, in layman’s terms: The rule would have allowed bureaucrats within one of our federal agencies to bar American citizens from exercising a constitutional right — and on the highly questionable grounds that to be incapable of managing one’s finances is, by definition, to be a ‘mental defective.'”
Among the criteria one could be flagged as mentally ill over? Not being good at handling money.
Yes, the media took the repeal of a law that prevented some elderly people from purchasing guns and turned that into “Republicans want the mentally ill to get guns.”
And they wonder why nobody trusts them.
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