Blog 7/21/23

Weekly Spotlight 7/21/23 – 7/27/23


Don’t Fall for Misleading Narratives Pushing Gun Control

When it comes to pushing a gun control agenda, there are few lengths that proponents won’t go to mislead the public and create false narratives.  We’ve seen this over and over – whether it’s how the media presents mass shooting statistics or how activists portray commonly owned types of firearms.  It’s an unfortunate aspect of a public dialogue that should be focused on tangible solutions to making communities safer while protecting individual liberty.  

One of the latest additions to the deception can be found in a tweet by none other than the Vice President of the United States.  Earlier this week, VP Kamala Harris tweeted a misleading statistic about the deaths caused by firearms among children.  Take a look:

[

To claim that “gun violence is the leading cause of death among children” requires an extensive amount of statistical gymnastics.  The only way to arrive at this claim with any semblance of accuracy is to include 18- and 19-year-olds as children and exclude actual children under one year old.  When using the proper definition – children from age 0-17 – then the leading cause of death is not firearms according to that same data from the CDC.  It’s actually automobile accidents, which claimed the lives of 2,281 children in 2020. 

While it might not be surprising that ardent supporters of attempts to chip away at Americans’ Second Amendment right are peddling such misleading information, it’s no less disappointing, and particularly when many in the national media do not fact check these misleading claims.  In this case, the Vice-President is not some random bureaucrat at the ATF or an unelected gun control activist making this claim – it’s the person who’s one heartbeat away from becoming President of the United States. 

The USCCA-FSL is here to clear the record on such claims, especially when they’re made as part of a push to restrict access to commonly-owned firearms among law-abiding Americans.  We will always stand for the truth, which is that guns are not the leading cause of death among our nation’s children, and that no gun control law ever made a community safer.  

Stand with us in our fight to preserve the Second Amendment and your right to self-defense!

OTHER NEWS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED

It is 3 AM in the morning and you are fast asleep in a hotel room. You are awakened by someone screaming for help in the hallway. Do you leave your room to investigate or do you stay in your room and call the police? This is an example scenario that you should consider as responsible armed citizens. But this is exactly what happened to a man in Waco, TX this past weekend. Early Saturday morning, a man awoke to people screaming for help from the hotel hallway where he was staying. He left his room, assumedly armed with a handgun, to investigate. He found a room with a man attacking three woman. As he tried to help the woman, the aggressor then started to attack the man which caused him to fire one shot which stopped the threat. 

Despite a statewide permitless handgun carry law being in effect for more than a year, South Bend officials say that the number of shootings in the city has gone down compared to previous years. HEA 1296, passed on July 1, 2022, removed the requirement to have a permit to carry a handgun in the state of Indiana. The proposed law had city leaders up in arms before it was passed. “We had a say, and we said it, but it fell on deaf ears,” said South Bend Police Chief Scott Ruszkowski during a 2022 press conference. 

Massachusetts lawmakers are so drastically overreaching with a 140-page gun control proposal that local police departments are flashing lights and blaring sirens because it is just that bad. The Ware, Mass., Police Department posted a warning to citizens on the police department’s Facebook page that HD 4420 is just plain terrible gun control legislation. “This Bill does not address criminals,” the post reads. “Rather it focuses on making criminals out of law-abiding citizens and further hampers police agencies from combating true crime.”

The Custer County sheriff in Colorado is alerting the public to a potential data breach impacting concealed carry permit holders. A message was shared on social media on Tuesday explaining the concerns, despite no evidence that any type of breach occurred. The following was posted to the Custer County Sheriff’s Office Facebook page: “Today, Custer County Sheriff, Rich Smith, emailed and/or mailed letters informing all Custer County Concealed Carry Permit (CCP) holders of a potential data breach investigation. Custer County Sheriff’s Office (CCSO) conducted an investigation with the vendor and were unable to find that any beach occurred; however, proper notice is required by Colorado Statute.”