Gabby Giffords
(AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)
Previous Post
Next Post

By Larry Keane

Former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords is disappointed Congress can’t get over partisan differences and pass a sweeping gun control agenda. Of course, it wouldn’t be called that. It would be called “commonsense gun safety laws.”

That’s rich. Giffords made the comments to Axios bemoaning that gun control legislation hasn’t been achieved. Giffords, of course, was the victim of a drug-addled and insane attacker that killed several others 10 years ago. Just one of many tragedies caused by our nation’s inadequate mental health system. She characterized the gun divide as “scary,” and Axios reported she is “terrified” for the safety of her husband, U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.). She invoked the Jan. 6 violence on Capitol Hill as a reason to drive forward on gun control.

“We need to combat the increasing polarization and partisanship in our country if we want to make meaningful progress on a whole host of critical issues,” Giffords told Axios.

That’s an interesting choice of words. Protecting fundamental God-given individual rights, in her estimation, is partisan. It’s “scary” that lawmakers would value the ability of Americans to keep and bear arms to protect themselves against senseless attackers instead of upending the Bill of Rights.

No one doubts Giffords’ sincere concerns for safety. Her conviction that Congress hasn’t and can’t act, however, is patently false. She knows this.

Real Achievements

Congress passed, and President Donald Trump signed, the Fix NICS Act, which compelled federal agencies and provided the states resources to submit all disqualifying criminal and adjudicated mental health records to the FBI’s National Criminal Instant Background Check System (NICS). It was named for NSSF’s FIXNICS campaign that’s changed the law in 16 states and resulted in 270 percent increase in adjudicated mental health records submissions since 2013, up from 1.7 million to over 6.14 million today.

That legislation was overwhelmingly bipartisan, with 78 Senate co-sponsors. It was led by Sen. John  Cornyn (R-Texas) and Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.). The two couldn’t be more opposite when it comes to gun rights. This, though, is where they found common ground.

There’s more legislation out there like this too, including the Federal Firearm Licensee (FFL) Protection Act. The NSSF-supported legislation would strengthen and enhance criminal penalties for thefts of firearms from firearm retailers. This is in addition to firearm-industry driven Real Solutions® that prevent firearm straw purchases, increase firearm retailer security and intervene to stop firearm suicides.

Ever More Gun Control

NSSF has always been willing to discuss difficult issues, as long as the rights of law-abiding Americans to keep and bear arms are respected. That’s not the answer Giffords’ gun control group has given.

Giffords gave America David Chipman, their lobbyist. He’s President Joe Biden’s nominee to be director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF). Chipman embraces radical gun control ideas, including banning Modern Sporting Rifles (MSRs), or at least twisting the National Firearms Act to compel those who own the 20 million-plus already in circulation to register them and pay an ownership tax on them.

It was recently confirmed by The Reload, Chipman made racially insensitive remarks about fellow ATF agents, prompting Sen. Mitch McConnell to demand The White House withdraw his nomination and Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee to call for a new hearing.

This is also the same man who falsely claimed that .50-caliber rifles downed helicopters during the ATF’s siege at Waco and denigrated gun buyers last year at “Tiger King” and Zombie apocalypse preppers.

Bad Faith

Giffords and the gun control group bearing her name can hardly point fingers and say gun control is a partisan problem when they’ve been stoking that fire.

Giffords tweeted just over a week ago, “The biggest opponent to David Chipman’s nomination for ATF Director? It’s not gun owners—it’s the gun industry. Chipman’s confirmation is literally a matter of life or death—but to the NSSF, it’s about their ability to sell more weapons.”

More recently, Giffords tweeted that NSSF is “lying, fearmongering, and promoting gun extremism.”


That’s hardly dialing back the polarization. Giffords gun control isn’t interested in that. Giffords recently hired Ryan Busse, a former obscure firearm industry executive, who found he could make money trashing the industry. He’s joined Giffords as a senior advisor and in just a couple of months, he’ll be releasing a book detailing all his gun industry grudges.


That’s a page borrowed from Sen. Kelly. He attempted to purchase an AR-15 from an Arizona store in 2013 to demonstrate how “easy it was” to buy the rifle. It was so easy, the retailer ended the sale when he learned it wouldn’t be for Kelly’s personal use, but to turn it over to the police in a publicity stunt.

Gun control advocates aren’t serious about real answers to difficult problems. They feign interest in “commonsense” solutions, but the answer is always more gun control. It’s never to address issues with no-bail policies, police funding, criminal accountability or ever the notion that each and every law-abiding American has the right to defend themselves.

They can focus on theatrics. The firearm industry will continue working on Real Solutions.

 

Larry Keane is SVP for Government and Public Affairs, Assistant Secretary and General Counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

 

 

Previous Post
Next Post

52 COMMENTS

  1. To the best if my knowledge the entirety of “the violence on Capitol Hill on Jan 6” was perpetrated by authorities. If you read between the lines, the silence from the media reports is deafening. Despite the continual drumbeat of The Message, you’ll note that there’s never been a single credible allegation that even one protestor was bearing arms.

    • So all those videos of protesters beating on cops with sticks and poles and an extinguisher are “fake news”? There were plenty of police officers treated for injuries afterwards, and the PTSD suffered by some has lead to a number of suicides. The only “gun violence,” of course, was the single gun shot, but the violence in entering the building was pretty wide-spread.

      • To be able to definitively answer your question, we need all of the security footage that Nervous Nancy is keeping under lock and key for some reason. We also need a list of everyone that was working with and known to the FBI, along with their cell phone data. Who’s keeping tabs on the FBI? And it’s funny you bring up fake news involving a fire extinguisher…

        “the PTSD suffered by some has lead to a number of suicides”

        You have evidence of that?

      • Sounds like mark needs a video of a woman getting shot dead in the Whitehouse to understand violence and who is who.

        The giffords gun safety law scheme is putting lipstick on a pig called Gun Control. It has nothing NADA to do with the criminal misuse of firearms and has all to do with targeting the millions of law abiding gun owners who had zip NADA nothing to do with the azzhat who shot her. In fact that azzhat was a product of a high school curriculum that came from the bill ayers crowd of looney communists.
        After the giffords and chipmonkey get through with the 2A we all would be sitting ducks for violent criminals. Thanks but No Thanks.

        • “woman getting shot dead in the Whitehouse“

          Man, you guys really try hard on this deception thing.

          I can’t really speak to any violence at the White House, I was too busy watching the insurrection in the United States Capitol, where thousands of individuals did their best to violate the constitutionally mandated process of presidential election deliberations by a joint session of the United States Congress.

        • And using this Giffords woman who nearly had the top of her head blown off, and can’t be left alone, like a child, for these political props is disgraceful.

      • Mark has conveniently forgotten about the 100 days of continuous riots in Portland which were “mostly peaceful”…..NOT!

      • Yeah this uninvited guests really put a lick on all the cops on Jan. 6th. It was more incompetence than anything.

      • Mark, please don’t be frustrated with these commenters, they are desperately clinging to their delusions because they form the core of their worldview.
        These are the kind of folks who just know some things are true without proof, like Columbus discovered America, Hillary eats babies, etc.

        • The capitol PD slipped up and said there were about 2000 hours of video that they had. Where is this video? I saw a video of 8 minutes of the Capitol PD hanging out with the “insurrectionists”. From what I saw it was more of party but if there are 2000 hours of video of what really happened that would sway my opinion that it was pretty much a selfie party. The only Capitol LEO that is claiming that he has PTSD had his head stuck in a door. He is suing for full disability. When he woke up from “passing out” he still had his handgun in it’s holster.
          That doesn’t sound like an insurrection, prove me wrong.

          Basically the two key bits of information that are being kept from the public are the video footage and the name of the cop who shot an unarmed woman who had cops behind her. He couldn’t miss at that range and I usually will give LE the benefit of the doubt. That’s not the case here, she posed no danger to him. That was cold blooded murder and it’s on video.

      • The clowns are committing suicide because they were written up for dereliction of duty. And the videos of them opening the doors to the uninvited guests, was prof of to many people allowed inside, per the fire marshall. So pelosi was concerned about the fire capacity limit. And then they got into her liquor cabinet too. And that was too much

  2. “We need to combat the increasing polarization and partisanship in our country” …

    … by making everyone conform to our control, or else.

    it works, you know. look at china.

    • Gun grabbers using the word combat. And you wonder why nobody believes a thing you say.

  3. More recently, Giffords tweeted that NSSF is “lying, fearmongering, and promoting gun extremism.”
    A more accurate statement would be, “Giffords are lying, fearmongering and promoting the destruction of the God given right to self protection.

  4. You’ve(finally) lost yer mind Gabby. That crazy boy who shot you stole that gat. No law changes that!

  5. Oh yes. How dare a person that was shot in the face at point blank range be against guns. What an affront to our POTG way of life!

    • She wants to punish all gun owners for what happened to her. Her actions are the same as the SS unit in France that burned and murdered an entire village because they couldn’t find the ‘partisans’ that attacked them.

      Hardly surprising as the fascist won the war for control of the left.

    • “How dare a person that was shot in the face at point blank range be against guns”

      well it’s sort of like being against cars because you were in a traffic accident with a drunk driver.

    • The gun didn’t act on its own. If she’s afraid of guns, then she should give up the armed security that protects her. She’s not fit to drive, and we’re supposed to take her word for anything. She speaks like a child.

      • She loves to go to the range with her snotball corrupt husband and their AR15(s) they’ve owned forever. I wonder if the photographic proof is still floating around the internet … (???)

    • She should be against the bullet, if she’s upset that an inanimate object is the problem. It’s the ridiculous bullets that are ruthless

  6. Giffords says whatever her handlers tell her to say.
    Feel sorry for her, at this point she’s essentially a meat-puppet.
    There just isn’t a lot of “there” left up there.

    • Democrats love using their puppets. Don’t tell anyone, but we have “former” corporate executives and Obama alumni running the White House. Puppet Joe just reads the script. Well…he tries.

    • Her husband should be arrested for sexual abuse of a mentally defective person. She can give legal consent with her child like brain.

  7. “Democrats love using their puppets”

    they have to. the puppets are the key to their success, and to their survival. whoever sees behind the puppets has an “… oh ….” moment. and then bad things happen. again.

  8. Gabby Giffords is proof that someone can shoot a Democrat in the head and not hit anything critical.

  9. The author Larry Keane lists the expansion of NICS as a “Real Achievement”?

    Lost me as a supporter right there. How in the world can any 2A advocate voice support for something that’s blatantly unconstitutional by its inherent assumption of your guilt, and requirement that you prove your innocence before being allowed to exercise your Natural and Constitutionally enumerated right?

    Clown world.

  10. The best part of the story is Wayne Lapierre and his wife’s fraudulent practices regarding their safari:

    “Records obtained by The Trace and The New Yorker show that Susan leveraged the LaPierres’ status to secretly ship animal trophies from their safari to the U.S., where the couple received free taxidermy work. New York Attorney General Letitia James, who has regulatory authority over the N.R.A., is currently seeking to dissolve the nonprofit for a range of alleged abuses, including a disregard for internal controls designed to prevent self-dealing and corruption by its executives. In a complaint filed last August, James’s office asserted that trophy fees and taxidermy work “constituted private benefits and gifts in excess of authorized amounts pursuant to NRA policy to LaPierre and his wife.” The new records appear to confirm those allegations. The N.R.A.’s rules explicitly state that gifts from contractors cannot exceed two hundred and fifty dollars. The shipping and taxidermy of the Botswana trophies cost thousands, and provided no benefit to the N.R.A.—only to the LaPierres. In the complaint, James’s office alleged that the LaPierres also received improper benefits related to big-game hunting trips in countries including Tanzania, South Africa, and Argentina. The attorney general declined to comment further on the details of the case.

    Taxidermy work orders containing the LaPierres’ names called for the elephants’ four front feet to be turned into “stools,” an “umbrella stand,” and a “trash can.” At their request, tusks were mounted, skulls were preserved, and the hyena became a rug. The episode represents a rare instance in which the gun group’s embattled chief executive is captured, on paper, unambiguously violating N.R.A. rules; the e-mails show that Susan directed the process while Makris’s company, Under Wild Skies Inc., which received millions of dollars from the N.R.A., picked up the tab.”

    • WLP does need to go, along with the rest of his cronies. No argument there.

      But the organization at its grass roots provides training, instruction, and officiating for hundreds to thousands of facilities across the country. WLP is detracting from these efforts.

    • So you mean Wayne is going to go to prison, and pay back all the money he stole from members? Great idea miner.

    • “The best part of the story is Wayne Lapierre and his wife’s fraudulent practices regarding their safari:”
      Who brought up Wayne Lapierre? I read everything and see no mention of him or the NRA.
      Is it because the NRA while in shambles is still stuck in Giffords head?

      Unlike the 9mm bullet that was a pass through. She’s a fake and making money from her whole anti 2A BS. Her husband is an ex astronaut and it shows. The Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence makes them more money then they will ever need. Wayne LaPierres safari? OK.

      More BS from MinorIQ, who would have thought?

      I thought that Diamondback Police Supply owner Doug MacKinlay stopped the sale of the 1911 and AR and raffled off the AR to benefit the Arizona Tactical Officers Association. The 1911 couldn’t be purchased because he had an out of state ID.

      He received no firearms from Diamondback Police Supply, in fact he lied on the 4473.

      • Hey MinorIQ “BREAKING: Missouri Governor Pardons Mark and Patricia McCloskey!
        In legal terms that means nothing ever happened. So sad for you.
        The HOA fixed the gate that the riotous mob broke.

  11. The CDC just ignored the Supreme Court’s ruling on eviction bans (which affects me personally). Landlords in “high COVID areas” will continue to be screwed over. What makes people think they’ll abide by Heller or any other favorable precedents for firearms rights established by the Supreme Court?

    Food for thought.

  12. Hypocritical splitwig bitch Gabby is NOT in Congress anymore and needs to mind her own business while she makes sure her and her snotball husband’s AR15(s) are clean, dry, and serviceable for their next range trip. She’s nobody and needs to stop playing on every twisted leftist’s and liberal’s emotional sympathy so she can maintain an extravagant lifestyle compared to a lot of shooting victims. Disgusting person I stopped feeling sorry for years ago.

  13. Poor sock-puppet. She was an up-and-coming bright star but fell victim to a mentally ill nut-case. Now in her feeble endeavor for relevancy she’s clinging to a hopeless unpopular cause.

    She could have championed for something better like anti-smoking because as all statistics show, smoking kills over ten times that of guns each and every year. But we also must recognize and appreciate that she has a big ole bullet wound in her head and that should illicit heart-felt sorrow from everyone who would then surely climb on board her anti-gun train. But it isn’t happening, not even close!

    An anti-smoking crusade would require cigarette burns or half a lung or some other grotesque disfigurement or ailment, nothing nearly as interesting as a bullet through the head though. Mental illness reform would have been a worthy cause but even with her broken bullet riddled brain she still has enough remaining intelligence to know that mental illness reform is as likely to occur as is the Titanic bobbing back to the surface.

    Summed up, I can’t blame her for trying. It can’t be easy to be in her shoes. It was a tragedy for her but we didn’t cause that tragedy and we won’t suffer be the consequences for it. Bad things happen to good people. That’s life.

  14. I’m sorry Gabby Giffords was shot. Its a horrible thing. I’ve been shot, it was not a fun experience so I can sympathize with her somewhat on this point. I was luckier than her, mine was in my right side under the vest edge at an angle and went through so it did not penetrate to reach anything vital.

    However, I did not shoot her, millions of Americans did not shoot her. Yet she wants to penalize me and millions of Americans by restricting or removing rights under the second amendment and also the first and fourth and fourteenth amendments not just for guns owners but for all Americans – something that people don’t seem to realize goes along with the Gifford and Biden and overall gun control plans.

    This has been hinted at by Chipman with his totalitarianism stance on the first amendment and his wanting to set aside the 4th and 14th amendment protections to enable warrant-less gun confiscation. The Biden DOJ also tried to get the 4th and 14th set aside in the Caniglia case so the gun confiscation would be ruled constitutional but SCOTUS was not having any of that gross and obvious violation of the constitution. Giffords is all for these moves and concepts – the Giffords (The Giffords Group) even pays Chipman to try to make this happen.

    She was shot in the head in an assassination attempt in 2011. Since then Giffords has recovered much of her ability to walk, speak, read, and write. But what does she do with her regained abilities and unique victim view of crime? Why of course, she starts trying to make all Americans pay for it by trying to punish us by removal/infringement of our rights.

    Gabby, I am truly sorry you got shot. But I and millions of Americans did not shoot you. It was not the second amendment or the first or fourth or fourteenth amendments that shot you or enabled you to be shot or facilitated you being shot. It was Jared Lee Loughner.

    Gabby, you and people like you have placed the burden on the American citizen trying to make them think and act like they owe a debt for everything that goes wrong with individuals.

    You and others like you try to make American citizens personally responsible in some way that another acted nuts and did something bad. We are not responsible for you getting shot and it was one person that was responsible for you getting shot and none of the other 300 million’ish Americans shot you that day so why do you want the rest of us to pay for it? We do not owe a debt for wrongful acts of others so stop trying to make us pay. We cherish our rights and are not willing to surrender them to you or anyone else.

  15. I’m sorry the nutjob was too stupid to not have HPs or people wouldn’t have put up with this nonsense.
    The 9mm FMJ did not hit anything vital in her brain, she barely even bled and that’s from her scalp.
    I have seen videos of Giffords acting 100% normal when she thought people weren’t watching or taping.
    She’s a fake and Giffords and her husband are just as nuts as the guy who shot her.
    People seem to forget 13 people were shot and 5 died.
    Since we are being truthful, she is normal, you wouldn’t even know that’s she been shot in the head.
    She has made 20 million dollars running “Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence”
    That’s the money that the public knows about, who knows what the real amount is?
    Her and her husband were worth less then a million before she was shot.
    She’s another Wayne LaPierre, same coin, different sides but making money on Gun Control.

Comments are closed.