Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) is siding with gun control proponent Gabby Giffords and other Democrat lawmakers in opposing national recognition of concealed carry for law-abiding citizens.
On May 3 Breitbart News reported Giffords’ opposition to national right to carry for law-abiding citizens and that she was joined by Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT).
Giffords and her gun control group, Americans for Responsible Solutions, have been involved in an unsuccessful campaign for universal background checks since January 2013. Giffords undertook the fight to require background checks after an attacker shot her with a gun that he acquired via a background check.
Senator Warner has now declared his opposition to any national recognition of concealed carry for law-abiding citizens. He released a statement Wednesday, which said, in part:
In recent years, I have heard from more and more victims of gun violence and their families in Virginia who are concerned about further weakening our gun laws. In the four years since the Senate’s last significant gun safety debate, the country has suffered over 100 mass shootings and tens of thousands of Americans are killed through gun violence each year.
With the tragic rate of gun violence today, I simply cannot support efforts to further weaken our nation’s gun laws. That includes renewed efforts this Congress to relax the standards for issuing concealed carry permits or to establish a national system that would further erode state-level concealed carry standards.
A few points need to be made. First, America has not suffered “over 100 mass shootings” since 2013. The left–of which Senator Warner is a part–has been feeding upon its own inaccurate reports and pushing such claims since Senator Joe Manchin’s (D-WV) gun control was voted down in April 2013. In fact, the claims got so wild–the left claimed 355 mass shootings in 2015 alone–that Mother Jones editor Mark Follman tried to rein them in by pointing out there had actually been four mass shootings in 2015. That is correct–four, not 355.
Another factual problem with Warner’s statement is the claim that “tens of thousands of Americans are killed through gun violence each year.” This simply is not so. In reality, the number of firearm-related homicides–what the left calls “gun violence”–hovers around 10,500 to 11,500 each year. There are, on average, an additional 20,000 to 22,000 deaths each year that the left adds to the homicide figures, but those additional deaths are suicides; and suicides are not deaths via “gun violence.”
Lastly, the left’s opposition to national reciprocity is not so much based on a fear of eroding “state-level concealed carry standards” as it is on the recognition that national reciprocity will wipe away myriad draconian gun controls in California, Illinois, New Jersey, and New York. It will force those states to fall in line and recognize Americans’ right not simply to keep arms but to bear them as well.
AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of Bullets with AWR Hawkins, a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.