Opinion

On Acosta’s AI stunt, fake victims, and why freedom doesn’t need deepfakes to survive.
I am still disturbed by Jim Acosta’s “interview” with an AI-generated school shooting victim, and it is the perfect exhibit for the Smithsonian’s Gallery of National Decline. Put it next to TikTok dances in congressional hearings, AI Biden robocalls, and whatever’s left of CNN’s credibility.
For those lucky enough to have missed it: Acosta — the former CNN White House correspondent turned YouTube straggler — trotted out a chatbot imitation of Joaquin Oliver, one of the Parkland victims. On what would’ve been Joaquin’s 25th birthday, Acosta asked his digital puppet about gun violence and politics. Imagine a Halloween animatronic muttering canned lines, but with tragedy grafted onto its pixels.
It was as bleak as it sounds.
The Exploitation of Grief
Let’s be clear: the pain of parents who lost children is real, unbearable even. But what Acosta and his media allies are doing here isn’t about comfort or remembrance. It’s about weaponizing grief for gun control theater. These AI “resurrections” aren’t bridges to healing — they’re props in a never-ending push to restrict the rights of millions of law-abiding Americans.
Gun-control groups have tried everything — lawsuits, bans, even vilifying common rifles as “weapons of war.” When that doesn’t move the needle, the fallback is emotional manipulation. Now, with AI, they’ve hit a new low: manufacturing digital ghosts to lobby Congress.
Freedom Doesn’t Need Deepfakes
The irony is, this whole experiment proves the opposite of what Acosta intended. If the case for dismantling the Second Amendment were strong, it wouldn’t need an animatronic victim to make it. Real facts would suffice. Real data would carry the day. Instead, anti-gunners turn to simulations, because reality keeps blowing holes in their narrative.
Here’s the truth they ignore:
Gun ownership is at record highs.
Millions of first-time buyers — including women and minorities — have exercised their constitutional right to protect themselves and their families. This wave of new gun owners undercuts the tired narrative that firearms are only for a narrow demographic. From single mothers in urban neighborhoods to retirees in rural America, people are voting with their wallets and embracing the Second Amendment as a practical necessity.
Defensive gun use saves lives daily.
These stories rarely make national headlines, but they happen all across the country. A homeowner stopping a break-in, a store clerk preventing a robbery, or a parent shielding their children from harm — each day, lawful gun owners prevent crimes and save lives. Yet CNN and other networks never interview the people who survived because they had a firearm. That silence is deliberate, because acknowledging defensive gun use would dismantle the anti-gun narrative overnight.
Mass shootings are statistical outliers.
Despite the nonstop headlines, they represent a tiny fraction of gun deaths and an even smaller fraction of overall firearm ownership. The overwhelming majority of America’s 100 million gun owners and their multiple guns never harm anyone. But instead of highlighting this reality, figures like Acosta attempt to paint the entire nation as a battlefield. It’s dishonest, manipulative, and designed to stigmatize freedom itself rather than confront the actual causes of violence.
The Real Ghost in the Machine
What’s truly grotesque isn’t the bad lip-syncing AI avatar. It’s the fact that grieving families are being pushed toward technological séance acts instead of real solutions — solutions like defending schools with the same seriousness we defend banks, or recognizing that self-defense is a human right that predates any government.
AI won’t resurrect a victim.
It won’t make classrooms safer.
And it won’t erase the simple truth: liberty is messy, freedom comes with risks, and the Second Amendment isn’t negotiable.
Acosta offers a simulacrum of hope — a digital ghost whispering pre-programmed anti-gun talking points into the void. But the American people know better. We don’t need to resurrect the dead to honor them. We honor them by standing firm in defense of life, liberty, and the right to protect both.
About Tred Law
Tred Law is your everyday patriot with a deep love for this country and a no-compromise approach to the Second Amendment. He does not write articles for Ammoland every week, but when he does write, it is usually about liberals Fing with his right to keep and bear arms.
Education can mitigate ignorance. But you can’t fix stupid.
Jim Acosta, Just Another Tragedy Pimp!!!
Half a billion guns didn’t shoot anyone today.
Just how many of these mass/school shootings were orchestrated by the deep state democrats to push for gun control? I’d bet money that they were behind many of them. Democrat politicians are heartless individuals who, IMHO, don’t value life so a few 6 year olds are no big thing to them if their deaths lead to the end they desire, gun control. Gun confiscation would open the door for their Bolshevik Revolution to turn the country communist with them permanently in charge. People have murdered for a lot less.