NRA members have long been well aware of the anti-Second Amendment bias of the national news media. I’ve been calling out their fake news for decades and America’s gun owners have, for decades, stood up to the media lies and fought for the truth about our constitutional freedom.
Sometimes the lies are so extreme, however, they might actually endanger the lives of innocent Americans.
Just this past October, The Washington Post opened a so-called news story with this line:
“States that have more relaxed criteria for allowing residents to carry concealed handguns have a higher rate of gun deaths than states with stricter requirements, according to a study released Thursday.”
In an agenda-driven article, masquerading as real news, the Post clearly set out to accomplish two goals—to discredit the Right to Carry for law-abiding citizens and to bolster opposition to national Right-to-Carry reciprocity legislation now moving through Congress.
Each of those goals is aimed squarely at our freedom and our right to protect ourselves and our families—a right blatantly and dangerously disregarded by the Post.
According to the article, researchers at the Boston University School of Public Health claim that states that have “may-issue” laws—in which government officials can choose who can and cannot receive a concealed-carry permit—have lower gun death rates than “shall issue” states, in which law-abiding Americans cannot be denied a permit for no reason.
They actually claimed that the homicide rate in Right-to-Carry states was a whopping 10.6 percent higher than the homicide rate in states that denied the Right to Carry.
It is preposterous, a fabricated lie, and a dangerous attempt to deny Americans a fundamental freedom of personal protection.
Gun owners shouldn’t be surprised the Post crowed about the study, nor about the fact that the researchers came to such a flawed, biased conclusion.
So-called researchers included Dean Sandro Galea and Bindu Kalesan. Last year, these two wrote in support of several firearm restrictions—“firearm identification requirements,” a federal “universal” background check law and federal ammunition background checks.
Their study is so flawed that even fellow anti-gun researchers don’t believe them. In speaking with the Post, David Hemenway, director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center said simply, “I don’t believe that.” That’s from an anti-gun academic! America’s 100 million law-abiding firearm owners don’t believe the study, either.
We know that a firearm in the hands of a good, decent citizen is a threat to no one (except the bad guys), and we know that the lawful carrying of a firearm can actually help reduce crime, not increase it.
Forty-two states attest to that fact.
The 42 states that allow and respect the Right to Carry account for 74 percent of the U.S. population. The number of Americans who exercise their Right to Carry has risen to more than 16.5 million and the nation’s violent crime rate has decreased 51 percent, the lowest in almost half a century.
Consider it another way. Between 2007 and 2015, concealed-carry permits issued around the country surged by 215 percent. During the same time period, the murder rate dropped by 14 percent.
In Florida and Texas, about one permit holder in 42,000 are convicted of firearm violations.
Two-thirds of published, peer- reviewed studies have found that Right-to- Carry laws reduce U.S. violent crime rates.
It is telling that not one single state legislature has ever held a hearing to consider rescinding Right-to-Carry laws. Surveys of police show that over 90 percent of rank-and-file officers consistently support the Right to Carry.
Why? Because Right to Carry works. Crime goes down. Law-abiding Americans are safer. Freedom prevails.
Every law-abiding American deserves the freedom to protect self and family. For the past three decades, that fundamental principle has fueled a movement that now allows three-fourths of the American population the life-saving freedom to carry.
More and more, that movement has been led by American women who are especially concerned for their safety.
American women, in record numbers, are embracing their Second Amendment rights and the empowerment that comes with that freedom to protect themselves.
That’s the truth the Post, and all the rest of the anti-Second Amendment media, just don’t get. All they know is that they hate guns, disdain gun owners, and they are willing to fabricate all the faked studies and articles they can think of to strip our freedom away.
If they had their way, we’d all be disarmed.
No law-abiding citizen should ever be forced to face evil with empty hands.
And no old, tired, biased newspaper is ever going to get in the way of NRA members defending and fighting for our great freedom!
