U.S.A. –-(Ammoland.com)- The Washington Post is reporting that the Giffords PAC part of the gun control group has launched a $300,000 advertising campaign blasting Virginia Republican lawmakers for opposing more restrictions on law-abiding citizens, but what the newspaper isn’t saying is that the message may be misleading.
According to one of the ads financed by Giffords PAC, “Guns kill more than 1,000 Virginians every year.” That number appears to combine homicides, suicides and perhaps even accidents because the recently-released FBI Uniform Crime Report for 2018 tells a far different story.
According to the FBI data, last year saw 391 murders, of which 297 involved firearms. Handguns are linked to 141 of those slayings, rifles accounted for eight and shotguns were used in five more. There were 143 murders in which the firearm was not identified. That’s down from the 453 murders reported by the FBI in 2017. Of those, 338 involved firearms, with 156 committed with handguns, and 11 each with rifles or shotguns. There were 160 slayings in which the firearm was “unknown.”
A Washington Post-Schar School survey released several days ago says “gun policy is the top issue for Virginia voters,” the newspaper reported. Results of that poll, conducted by telephone Sept. 25-30, may be viewed here.
As reported by the Washington Post, a spokesman for Virginia Republican House Speaker Kirk Cox said the GOP majority in Richmond “knew Virginia Democrats would be well funded by out-of-state liberal PACs.”
Spokesman Parker Slaybaugh told the newspaper, “The outside gun control groups have meddled in our elections for years, so this is nothing new and doesn’t change our strategy.”
According to the American Society for Suicide Prevention, using 2017 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suicide is the 11th leading cause of death in Virginia.
Combining firearm-related suicide and homicide numbers has been a strategy of the gun prohibition lobby for many years. When anti-gunners talk about 30,000 to 33,000 deaths annually from so-called “gun violence,” they are mixing the numbers to produce a more dramatic figure.
That’s what Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said in a recent news release about the latest FBI crime report.
“In order to create the impression that this country is awash in violent crime,” he asserted, “gun grabbers routinely combine the number of homicides and suicides, plus accidental deaths and call them all acts of so-called ‘gun violence.’ It is deliberately misleading and downright dishonest.”
Virginia voters head to the polls Nov. 5 for the off-year legislative elections. Democrats are hoping to take control, and gun control appears to be one of their priorities after Republicans earlier this year shut down a special session aimed at passing more gun restrictions. Anti-gun Gov. Ralph Northam had called that session in reaction to a mass shooting that occurred in Virginia Beach May 31. A dozen people were killed in that incident, which primarily occurred in a government building where employees are not allowed to have defensive firearms. One person was killed in the parking lot outside.
A link on the Giffords website takes visitors to the list of “gun safety champions” the group has endorsed in an effort to help Democrats take the majority next month. Virginia Second Amendment activists may be using that list to determine who they should vote against.
At the website, Giffords PAC political director Joanna Belanger makes the following statement: “Voters in Virginia are primed to turn out this year on gun safety. With current state leadership paying lip service to the issue, this year Virginia voters will say ‘enough is enough.’ The status quo of thoughts and prayers is no longer acceptable, and these ads show just what’s at stake if elected leaders in the Commonwealth continue to block progress. This is an important moment for Virginia. Carrying gun safety champions to victory in November will be the first step in creating a safer Virginia free from the dangers of gun violence.”
This is what many activists call an example of “camo-speak,” substituting the term “gun safety” for the less acceptable term “gun control.”
About Dave Workman
Dave Workman is a senior editor at TheGunMag.com and Liberty Park Press, author of multiple books on the Right to Keep & Bear Arms and formerly an NRA-certified firearms instructor.
Democrat Jared Loughner shot Gabby Giffords because he felt she was not pushing communism hard enough. Loughner killed six and wounded 14. Loughner had POSTED that he wanted to kill people and “shoot 165 bullets in a minute”. Loughner was a mental patient taking psychotropic meds. Giffords and her idiot husband have been amassing arms & ammo and creating a private armed group. 99% of all mass shooters/mass murderers have been democrats. Just like mass murderer Nikolas Cruz, a member of the Young Democrats Club at Stoneman Douglas HS, Loughner and Cruz BOTH TOLD everyone what they were going to… Read more »
If you talk to people whose kids went to school with Laughner, and I have, they will tell you he was bat crap crazy from age 11. No one bothered to intervene.
Always keep in mind, anyone that wants to disarm Patriotic Citizens has an agenda that is, probably bad for most citizens and they have something to gain from it. Anybody that supports UnConstitutional laws is a Traitor to this Great country!! Your very own FBI stats will tell you that where gun ownership goes up,,,,the Crime Rate Goes DOWN!! I ask you, why would anybody support HIGHER Crime Rates?? Only people that stand to gain when Good Citizens can NOT fight back! Shame On You!!
Typical Dem/libtard ad… Compulsive liars to the bitter end.
Gun grabbers, lying to the public, who would have ever thought.
The problem with half truths is they are complete lies. People that use tactics such as this should not be trusted — for anything. If they are willing to lie to get votes there is very little they are useful for save jail but certainly they are not fit for office. Know the truth and the truth will set you free. The fact is more people are murdered with hammers than with all rifles combined. To that add those crossing the street, car accidents, impaired drivers, drowning, murder for convenience (abortion), drug addiction, fentanyl etc. It they really wanted to… Read more »
@Deplorable bill
The two types of lies, lies of omission, and lies of commission. Half truths fall under the former, while directly and knowingly presenting false information comes from the latter.
No surprise there considering their MO. Great comment.
YOU ARE WRONG. The “opioid crisis” is NOT about pharmaceuticals. It is about HEROIN and FENTANYL.
Too bad you bought the democrat’s lies. Hundreds of E.R. Doctors have submitted letters to Congress demanding this STOP being called an opioid crisis and be called the Heroin crisis. It is NOT “big pharma”. It is Mexico and China.
NEVER believe the media.
Many were hooked on prescription drugs. War on drugs cracked down, resulting in everyone being cut off. So as addicts do, those who could no longer get legal drugs turned to illegal drugs. Without QC or any real dosing control the OD death rate skyrocketed. This problem was brought to us by previous over prescription combined with shortsighted absolutist crackdown. As a result OD death rate went from ~30k to ~100k per year- such an improvement… Meanwhile people with legitimate needs for opioid pain relief are subjected to needless suffering and countless others are forced to struggle through accelerated withdrawal.… Read more »
Meanwhile, for those enduring chronic pain, there are a number of very effective, NON_ADDICTIVE, modalities of treatment involving the use of various cannabis products and derivitives, that are NOT psychoactive at all, and are NON ADDICTIVE yet very effective. Yet, thanks to big pharma and their heavy pressure against it, cannabis remains a “schedule one” drug. Schedile one drugs are unniversally VERY addictive, and have no medical benifit or use. Cannabis is NOT addictive at all, (perhaps habit forming but so are Dr. Pepper, chocolate, Altoids, and Angry Birds. ). So I will contest your claim that Big Pharma are… Read more »
“T”, I do know a little about the opioid crisis. Yes, I am aware that a lot of this poison is coming from China through Mexico. However, if you do some research, you will find big pharma is much more than complicit in the overmedicating of people who are hurt. I, unfortunately, know all too well about their marketing and lies concerning opioids. Yes, the junk from China is a VERY big deal, much bigger than most know but big pharma is still guilty in their own right. Do some research and you will find this to be true. You… Read more »
“T”, I know a little bit about the opioid crisis. Yes, China is sending a lot of this stuff through Mexico but big pharma is still guilty of understating (and much, much more)how easy it is to get hooked on this stuff. Do your research, it’s not difficult to find the truth. Start with Finnky. Follow the money. I, unfortunately, know a little bit about this. I can tell you I have neighbors who’s kids have od’d and died. Big pharma meets with/pays off MD’s to prescribe it and they both get rich. Follow the money.
Arm up, carry on.
And you expected a DemocRAT to tell the truth ? They are ALL habitual liars ! It’s in their DNA !
They are intentional liars. Deliberate. They justify their misinformation campaign by calling it a Socratic “noble fiction” designed to lull the lumpen proletariat in to false promises by telling very comforting and reassuring lies. They can’t tell the truth. Their “truth” looks exactly like the People’s Republic of China. That is their utopia.
Here is an Oldie but goody that explains a lot of what these GUN CONTROLLING FREAKS ARE DOING: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of… Read more »
Why aren’t these gun grabbers being prosecuted under 18 US §241 Conspiracy Against Rights? This is a question we all need to be asking.
Yet, cowardly Americans kneel and lick the hand of the tyrant as they blithely obey unconstitutional ‘gun control laws’ because it is just too much effort to stand up for their Rights.
America dies with each coward kneeling.
It falls under the same as all of the Demo-Rat agenda, false information, lies, cheat, steal, and buying off all of the crooked news media, that they had nothing to do with any wrong doing, and will never be put in jail or even stand trial, because the REPUBLICAN PARTY DOESN’T HAVE A SET OF GONADS TO STAND UP AND FIGHT A CROOKED FIGHT LIKE THE DEMO-RATS, GET IN THE MUD AND HAVE HAD IT!!!!!!!!!!!!! ALL OF THE TALK IN THE WORLD WON’T GET IT DONE, THE WOMEN IN THE REPUBLICAN PARTY HAVE MORE THAN ANY OF THE MEN IN… Read more »
Must pass an apology to VA from AZ. The Gabboid and her Mini Me spouse are spending Bloomberg money all over the nation in their quest to turn the USA in to the PRC. Their war on individual liberty and self-reliance is well funded but totally fueled by fake information. WE have been on the receiving end of this misinformation campaign for years here in AZ. So if you are confused on any issue, here is a hint. Follow the money. If the money leads back to a progressive billionaire like Bloomberg, Steyer or Soros then you know which side… Read more »
Just wish Jared Lee Loughner had been a better shot or used a shotgun.
The Gabbing Gifords was NOT a parimary target. No, she being hit was not intended, she is collateral damage. The real target was the judge that was killed. He had issued a ruling against the killer that he did not like, and for which he sought revenge. Giffords was as much a target at the little nine year old girl, also killed.
Of course, if he HAD been a better shot, his rounds would have gone where he wanted them to, and not into the little girl… nor the big one.
In court, Loughner complained bitterly that Giffords was not supporting communism.
Giffords was an intended target.
He used round nose ammo from walmart, not hollow points.
One of the rounds hit a women in the face, it traveled via her nasal cavity,
while being examined they discovered she had a brain tumor from the images.
They removed the tumor and left the FMJ round in place. The woman plays in the symphony and would have died later on if she was not shot by the maniac.
His family knew he needed help but did not make the calls to get him into a facility.
According to the poll, Democrats’ opinions about who to vote for are more concerned about their opinion of Trump, by more than double, than about their Governor. These same people claim Trump is a Nazi, a White Nationalist, and a racist – without any proof to support such non-sense. Yet Governor Northam – as an adult in medical school – was photographed in in blackface. Who is the racist? Additionally, Mark Herring also later admitted, he had worn blackface as an adult. I remember, back in 1993, Ted Danson wore blackface and was vilified. Today, Northam and Herring are just… Read more »
And Riddle me this: if leftists are so convinced that Trump is Satan Incarnate why would they want to be disarmed in the face of that threat? Magical thinking at work.
Exactly. Same goes for their craving for govt run health care – they hate Trump passionately, yet blindly trust his administration to preside over a single payer national commie program. Really goes to show the level of brain power at work inside these people’s heads. The word dumbphukks comes to mind immediately.
WHAT is the big deal about putting on blackface? It is no more racist than dressing as a gypsy on halloween, or as an Irishman on Sent Paddies Dey, or Jack Benny playing the role of Steppen Fetchit, or Red Skelton the bum. Yet Fauxcahauntas Warren continues to play her”indian” card. Hah!! I am far more “indian” than she is. I’ve got a known cherokee ancestor back in the mid-late 1800’s. I’d be far more justified putting on deerskin breechclout, moccasins, leggings, and an eagle feather in my headband. Get a life, man…. blackface, back when these guys did it,… Read more »
Tionico, blackface has always been viewed as racist, which is why Danson was vilified. Regardless, my point was that the Democrats are the racists, proven, as I stated previously, yet they project their racist views, immorality, and other deficiencies onto the Republicans. Sadly, there are enough ignorant people in the USA that believe their lies. I am not stating that Republicans are saints, it is just that the Democrats are going completely bat-sh-t crazy over Trump, calling him a Nazi, etc., without any proof. Do you believe that if they found a picture of Trump in blackface, he wouldn’t get… Read more »
Simply advertise that the Democrats are trying to pass the exact same gun legislation as they have in Chicago, Baltimore, and New York. Do you really want Virginia to fallow in those foot steps?
About those “concerned” Democrats: “Democrat governor Ralph Northam, a supporter of gun control reforms, and his administration lost out on $665,673 in grant funding that is specifically aimed at reducing gun crimes… after state officials refused to certify that Virginia would comply with federal requirements to share immigration information with federal law enforcement. Attorney General [Mark] Herring and Governor Northam have said the loss of lives in Virginia to guns is an emergency, yet they’re willing to walk away from grant funding for a program that has been proven to work,” [Republican majority leader Todd] Gilbert said. “They’re willing to… Read more »
Raconteur: I am grateful you posted this, as it underscores a problem within the gun prohibition movement. They would rather target honest gun owners than cooperate with federal authorities—and get the accompanying revenue—to catch people who in the country illegally, a crime in itself, who might be committing other crimes. Todd Gilbert is spot-on. They really ARE willing to put politics above saving lives.
Thanks so much for reading and for contributing to the conversation!
@Dave Workman, The gun prohibition movement has not the courage to confront real evil. Real evil is powerful and exacts powerful consequences. Confronting us law abiding, working class folks does not have consequences, and takes no real courage.
So The real question here will be how many Republican candidates made enemies out of their constiuents by not keeping their word. I do hope Virginia survives long enough for what will happen over the next few short years. Considering the idiot they installed as governor they are in bad shape as it is already.
Racist Ralph Northam demands to be called “His Excellency”.
Revelator, yes we are in bad shape here, and it will be much worse if we lose our slim majority in Va. house and Senate. I hope the good folks in the rural areas of the state will turn out and vote to keep our majority. We may not have enough votes, we may be outnumbered by city voters. That`s why Northam was elected, not by rural folks. My representatives are fighting hard for our rights. Terry Austin and Steve Newman, thanks for all you do.
@ras52
My wishes to you for luck then in a few weeks. Stay strong
ras52, are you a member of the VCDL? If not, please join us. The VCDL has been able to get good laws passed even when Democrats held the legislature; granted that was years ago, before their brains were eaten by the extreme Leftists in their party.
Here’s something. Substitute Nazi’s for the Democrat leadership, German people for Democrat and uninformed voters, and Jews for Trump + Republicans. Now I can almost see how the German people were fooled. We now have Democrat leaders controlling the press and telling the same lies over and over about Trump and Republicans, so the Democrat and other uninformed voters are starting to believe them. Like the Jews in Germany, the Republicans have no voice, so the Left continues to vilify the president, gun owners, and conservatives generally. We have got to get the truth out. Shame shame shame on the… Read more »
I moved to Virginia in 2016. If the democrat socialist traitors seize control and infringe on my rights I will move out.
THEY ALREADY INFRINGE ON YOUR RIGHTS…ALL of them.
“..shall not be infringed”. The definition of ‘infringed’ has not changed in 700 years.
WHY, then, do Americans ALLOW the totalitarian democrats to infringe on their Rights when there is a Constitutional COMMAND that they NOT be infringed?
Cowardice has its consequences.
Mike, all you have to do is vote Nov. 5 to prevent that from happening. Make sure your friends and neighbors vote as well!
Thanks for reading.
Bottom line is, if they don’t pad the numbers their anti-gun control lies will be out there for all to see. Pro gun groups should pay for spot in the media and report the FBI statistics as well. A couple of weeks worth of the truth in the papers, news, advertisements and other media and social sources might get people to re-think why false anti-gun control numbers don’t match FBI stats.
Giffords and her moron husband have been purchasing arms and working to create a private armed “army”. Giffords does see a second civil war.
So typical that no one in the FBI seems to care. But, get together with some friends to shoot and the FBI claims you are a militia group. Buy 100 rounds of ammo and the FBI claims you are ‘stockpiling ammo’. Lying communists.
FBI, the new KGB.
@TJ – I’m confused. When has FBI declared a group of friends to be “a militia group” for going shooting together, or claimed that someone is stockpiling ammo? Mainstream media, certainly – but haven’t heard FBI saying that. Does this mean anyone who purchases a single ‘standard’ box of ammo (1k rds) is stockpiling? Does that description change if they shoot 500 a weekend – as it’s a pretty poor stockpile that only lasts through two sessions… Now if you don’t want to be described as “a militia” – a few hints before you get together with your friends… Don’t… Read more »
@tt, presuming that everything else is true, how would it benefit the Fat Boy Institute to declare that a group is a “militia”? What are the legal ramifications of being declared a “militia” group?