Gun-control advocates are compulsive liars. They have to be because the truth doesn't support their agenda. Ongoing claims that 90 percent of Americans, including the vast majority of gun owners and NRA members, support "universal background checks" for gun purchases was a lie when it was first uttered and has become an even bigger lie as time passes. The pronouncement that 40 percent of guns sold each year are sold through "private sales" with no background checks is a lie. Claims that gun control is needed to "make our children and our communities safer" is a lie. Declaring that 30,000 lives are lost to "gun violence" each year in the U.S. is a lie. Claims that there is an "epidemic of gun violence" sweeping the nation is a lie, as are claims that there is an "epidemic of mass murders." Even the names of gun-control groups – claiming to be focused on "violence policy," "violence prevention" and "gun safety" – are all lies. And the term "gun control" itself is a lie. Virtually everything coming from gun-control advocates today is a lie.
These are not simple distortions or cases of "my statistics are better than your statistics"; these are intentional, calculated, bald-faced deceptions, foisted on the American public by ideologically motivated zealots trying to force an agenda of citizen disarmament and government control. That's not to say that everyone who supports gun control is driven by the same ideology, or that there are no honest, passionate, idealistic, true believers among the ranks of gun-control advocates. There are some very good, honest, sincere people who promote gun control, but unfortunately these misguided souls are steeped in emotion and inculcated with the never-ending lies of the professional gun haters.
Let's dissect some of the lies:
Claim: Over 90 percent (almost 90 percent, close to 90 percent) of Americans support "universal background checks," as do various large percentages of gun owners and NRA members.
That statistic came from a couple of highly suspect polls conducted, primarily in Northeastern states, shortly after the Sandy Hook atrocity. Anyone with a brain should realize that these statistics were fraudulent based solely on the fact that 90 percent of Americans barely agree that water is wet, much less that we need more government intrusion into our private transactions.
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But this lie (that might have started out as just a distortion) has gotten much, much bigger as time has gone by. In late April, USA Today, that bastion of conservatism, conducted a poll which found that less than 50 percent of respondents supported any expansion of gun-control laws of any kind. Other subsequent polls have found similar results, and they are trending even farther away from the earlier poll numbers – yet gun-control advocates continue to declare that 90 percent of Americans support universal background checks. It is a lie.
Claim: Almost 40 percent of firearms sales occur without a background check.
That lie was first widely promoted by gun-control advocacy groups and the president in late December in the media frenzy following Sandy Hook. It was declared a distortion by yet another conservative media juggernaut, the Washington Post, in January. It was subsequently labeled a "half-truth" and outdated by other fact-check media. Even so, Obama and company have continued to preach it as gospel, right up to this very day, earning further derision from the Post's fact-check column and a coveted score of "3 Pinocchios" for the president (on a scale of 1 to 4). It's a lie.
Claim: Gun control is needed to "make our children and our communities safer."
This presumes that guns serve only evil purposes and that passing laws prevents criminal violence. There has never been a supportable study proving, or even strongly suggesting, that gun control does anything to reduce criminal violence or even suicide. Reviews of existing literature going back to the 1970s have consistently found no connection between gun control and crime. On the other hand, there are several peer-reviewed studies which show that guns in private hands are used to stop crimes more often than they are used to commit crimes, and that the prevalence of guns appears to result in reduced violent crime.
Claim: About 30,000 lives are lost to "gun violence" each year in the U.S., and "13 children a day are killed in gun violence."
The 30,000 number is based predominantly on suicides. Most people don't think of suicide as "gun violence," and despite distorted claims from "researchers," the suicide rate in the U.S. is only slightly higher than that of Canada, even though Canada has a much lower rate of suicide involving guns. Meanwhile the suicide rate in the gun-free utopia of Japan is 80 percent higher than the U.S. rate. The "children" in the 13-a-day statistic include "children" in their 20s. Most are between 16 and 24, a peak age for criminal activity, and, again, a heavy percentage of these deaths are suicides. Virtually all of the guns used are obtained illegally. The claims are intentional distortions, deceptions, lies.
Claim: There is an epidemic of violent crime and mass murder sweeping the nation.
No there isn't. Crime is at its lowest rate in decades. Serious violent crime is predominantly isolated to a few large cities, most of which have draconian gun laws. About 75 percent of murder victims are known criminals, as are some 90 percent of captured murderers. Atrocities like Sandy Hook and the Batman movie massacre tend to happen in cycles, based, in a large degree, upon the level of media attention devoted to them. While there has been more press about them in recent years, the actual number of occurrences has not gone up dramatically. Suggestions that crime in general or that mass murders are significantly increasing are not true. They're lies.
Gun-control groups are based in lies. They call themselves "violence prevention" and "gun safety" groups even though the only violence prevention and gun safety policies they espouse are restrictions on legal access to firearms. They lie about who they are, what they stand for and what they want. They are liars through and through.
The truth is, Gun Control Doesn't.
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