Shannon Watts

 

By Larry Keane

Remember that American Rescue Plan signed by President Joe Biden that sent $1,400 checks to support those economically affected by the COVD-19 crisis? That was the plan pushed by The White House to provide direct relief to Americans, help contain the spread of COVID-19, and rescue the economy.

Turns out, it’s also being used to advance local gun control initiatives.

Everytown for Gun Safety, the gun control group bankrolled by antigun billionaire Michael Bloomberg, is even hosting webinars to teach officials how to tap into the $130 billion to advance gun control initiatives. Everytown and Giffords gun control justify using the taxpayer-funded relief money for their goals by claiming the rise in criminal violence is caused by COVID-19 and that “violence intervention professionals” are on the pandemic’s front lines.

This absurd argument ignores the fact that crime spiked after civil unrest and rioting broke out across the country in urban centers and cities slashed police departments following calls to defund the police. Those calls to “reimagine law enforcement” were supported and echoed by the gun control groups. Violence intervention professionals used to be the police, but once law enforcement was withdrawn, criminals got bolder.

COVID Control?

Now these same gun control groups would use federal emergency funds to entrench gun control their agendas instead of safeguarding communities from violence, pandemic infection, and supporting businesses that were forced to be closed and Americans who lost their jobs. These groups didn’t pull the idea from thin air either.

The Biden administration is openly advocating using the funds to push a gun control agenda. The Treasury Department issued a press release urging that the funds be used for Community Violence Intervention (CVI) programs.

Joe Biden ice cream
(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

The Treasury Department also indicates the funds can be applied to bolstering law enforcement efforts, including those stopping illegal gun trafficking, however, neither Everytown nor Giffords makes mention of using the funds to put more police on the streets.

That’s on top of The White House’s 2022 discretionary budget plan that includes $2.1 billion for the Department of Justice (DOJ) to treat crime as a public health crisis and President Joe Biden’s also proposed $5 billion for community gun violence prevention in the American Jobs Plan published earlier this year.

Wrong Treatment

The idea that COVID infections are a causal factor in crime is illogical. Crime isn’t a disease. It is criminal behavior. NSSF has pointed out that firearm sales reached record levels and continue to sell at near-record rates because of concerns of rising crime.

defund the police ap crop
(AP Photo/Matt York)

The FBI released its Uniform Crime Report that showed murders rose 29 percent nationwide. The Council on Criminal Justice, a nonpartisan think tank, cites changing police activity in response to COVID-19 infections and community leaders breaching trust with police departments as two of the reasons crime is up, including murder.

The American Rescue Plan is pitched by The White House as direct relief to Americans affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s looking more like a cash infusion on the taxpayer’s dime to push a gun control agenda.

 

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

 

17 COMMENTS

  1. Nothing much to say by me except I bought guns n ammo with my Biden bux! Go & do likewise…

  2. “violence intervention professionals”

    We call those gun owners, but hey thanks for the catchy title.

    • “violence intervention professionals”

      I am “violence intervention retired”. I am no longer paid to intervene with violence. However, if violence is brought to me or my presence, I will intervene that hell out of someone with violence.

  3. Perhaps this rise in violence has more to do with the wholesale release of prison inmates, many of them violent offenders, due to covid-19. Liberal stupidity at work or a deliberate attempt to make things worse with gun-grabbing Democrats promising to make it all better if only we’d just give up our firearms?

  4. I certainly need that money to help prevent the racism and genocide that history confirms follows Gun Control wherever it has been or where ever it goes.

    The History of Gun Control is clearly diabolical, despicable and destructive. Therefore the History of Gun Control should be mandated to appear with every Gun Control article written. Just like a Smoking Warning appears on each pack of cigarettes.

  5. Sounds like fraud to me. Normally in Government, money has specific uses it must be put to and it can’t be used for other things. When everything is said and done, Biden’s presidency is going to be the most corrupt and worst presidency to date… and that’s saying something after Obama.

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