The gun control industry never lets facts get in the way of furthering their anti-gun narrative. Ever. Sometimes that’s due to their casual pig-ignorance about guns, how they work, and the laws that regulate them. They don’t know what they don’t know and don’t seem particularly concerned about it, even when they end up shooting themselves in the foot by spouting inanities.
And then there are the out-and-out lies the tell. Lies like claiming that guns are the leading cause of death of children in the US. Or that the PLCAA makes gun manufacturers lawsuit-proof. Or that 90 percent of Americans favor stricter limits on gun rights.
Today brings us another steaming whopper from our Bloomberg-backed friends at Moms Demand Action. To further their never-ending crusade to enact an “assault weapons” ban version 2.0, they marked today date as the eleventh anniversary of the Washington Navy Yard shooting.
But they weren’t content with simply using the deaths of 13 people (including the killer) to further the cause of civilian disarmament in America. Instead, they chose to lie about what actually happened that day.
In a since deleted tweet, they wrote . . .
On this day 11 years ago, 15 people were shot—12 fatally—when a gunman armed with an AR-15, another rifle, and a semi-automatic handgun opened fire inside a building at the Washington Navy Yard in Washington, DC.
Today and every day, we remember the victims and survivors, and honor their lives with action.
The only problem is, Aaron Alexis didn’t use an AR-15 rifle or any other rifle to murder 12 people. He used a legally purchased pump action shotgun until it ran out of ammunition. Then he grabbed a 9mm handgun from security guard he’d shot and continued his killing spree.
That isn’t some obscure detail that’s hard to determine. A lot of us who pay attention to these things remember it well. For those who aren’t as dialed in, there’s the easily accessed Wikipedia page that describes what happened and includes a clear security camera image (above) of Alexis holding the shotgun he used during his killing spree.
If anyone at Moms Demand Action had been the slightest bit concerned with niceties like accuracy, they could have read the Washington, DC Metro Police Department’s after action report on the shooting. It would have taken them no more than three minutes to Google it and read the executive summary, the first two paragraphs of the report . . .
On the morning of Monday, September 16, 2013, Aaron Alexis entered Building 197 at the Washington Navy Yard, where he served as an independent contractor, and carried out the most deadly workplace mass shooting in the Nation’s Capital in recent memory.
Over the course of 69 minutes, Alexis terrorized thousands of employees of Naval Sea Systems Command, firing indiscriminately from a shotgun he had legally purchased two days earlier and a handgun he had taken from a security guard after mortally wounding the guard. He would also get into multiple shooting engagements with responding law enforcement officers, seriously injuring a Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) officer. In his final confrontation with police, Alexis ambushed and fired upon another MPD officer. Fortunately, the officer was saved by his protective vest and was able to return fire, killing Alexis and ending his rampage. When it was over, Alexis had shot and killed twelve people and injured several others.
It seems, though, that simply murdering 12 people and then committing suicide isn’t interesting enough for the hoplophobic droogs at Moms Demand Action to build a nice, juicy narrative-reinforcing post around. Instead, they chose to to lie and claim that Alexis used an AR-15 to kill his victims. That’s their current focus, especially during election season. Besides, arguing for a ban of civilian-owned shotguns is a bridge too far, at least right now. Better to achieve their current stretch goal of a ban on “assault rifles” first, and then expand their civilian armament campaign to pistols and then scatterguns.
The reality is, this is a good thing. The inherent laziness and dishonesty of the gun control industry only devalues their messaging and allows those who support gun rights to easily undercut and discredit them. So we have a message for the mouth-breathers at Moms Demand Action, Brady, and Giffords…keep up the good work.
Unfortunately, facts do not matter to a huge percentage of the population.
Many entities such as “Moms Demand Action” know that all they have to do is make an official looking story and then let their readers’ confirmation bias plus their desperate desire to be a part-and-parcel member of their tribe do the rest.
It gets nauseating when you realize how many people, businesses, and political groups deceive, manipulate, and/or coerce as their primary method/s to “win over” the populace.
Exactly correct!
“Today and every day, we remember the victims and survivors, and honor their lives with action.”
Telling lies and exploiting the deaths to push an agenda is not honoring anyone.
They need to have their asses dragged out back and kicked soundly for how they exploit these horrible events to metaphorically dance in the blood gleefully. MDA is no better than the monsters that enact these horrible events.