Gabby Giffords Joe Biden
(AP Photo/John Locher)
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By Larry Keane

Former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords, who heads up the gun control group bearing her name, is spinning tales and vilifying the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) to advance President Joe Biden’s shared gun grab visions.

Giffords penned an op-ed in The Philadelphia Inquirer calling for nationwide universal background checks on all firearm transfers. She claims this is what America needs but couldn’t be more wrong. America doesn’t need more background checks. America needs better background checks. That’s exactly what NSSF has been fighting for since 2013.

NSSF’s FixNICS campaign is focused on improving the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) so the background check system works as it was intended. The firearm industry spearheaded this initiative and changed laws in 16 states and in Congress to ensure all disqualifying adjudicated mental health and criminal records are submitted to the FBI.

Since NSSF started this effort, submission of disqualifying records to the FBI increased 270 percent, from about 1.7 million in 2012 to over 6.14 million in 2021.

Gabby Giffords
(AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

Pennsylvania, where Giffords is stumping for gun control, is one of the most improved states because of the firearm industry’s efforts, not Giffords’ gun control. In 2012, Pennsylvania submitted just one disqualifying mental health record to the FBI. The firearm industry changed that. Today, 944,974 records are submitted.

Still, Giffords demands Congress act to push for universal background checks without clarifying that the murderer, who took six innocent lives and wounded Giffords, passed the very background check she demands.

She overlooks that the background check her attacker passed didn’t account for his noted drug abuse, his violent outbursts or declining state of mental health. Better laws were needed to stop the likes of her attacker, not more laws that would infringe on the rights of those who obey the law.

Gun Control Lies

Giffords’ troubles with the truth don’t end there. She claims that 90 percent of surveyed gun owners support universal background checks. That’s not the entire story. The fact is the most recent attempt for universal background checks in Congress, H.R. 8, was rammed through without even debate and passed on near-party lines.

Colion Noir, attorney and Second Amendment advocate, took apart this myth over the vague wording and what the question leaves out. What is never asked is if Americans agree with being put on a national gun registry – a watchlist – simply for exercising Constitutional rights.

Giffords wasn’t done though. She claimed unlicensed gun dealers are selling guns wholesale in America. She’s dancing with words to confuse readers.

There are licensed firearm retailers and private sellers. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) regulates firearm retailers. Private parties are able to sell firearms within the laws of their states, some of which require background checks before transferring a firearm. Anyone else selling guns for profit without a license has an entirely different category. That’s criminal. The firearm industry wants criminals locked up.

Giffords blasted Members of Congress for failing to pass any meaningful legislation to improve public safety when it comes to firearms. Again, this is false.

Congress passed, and President Donald Trump signed into law, the FIX NICS Act in 2018, named for NSSF’s program, because it demanded what NSSF has pushed for since 2013. It compels federal agencies and incentivizes states to submit all disqualifying mental health records. It passed with broad bipartisan support, with 78 U.S. Senators co-sponsoring the law. That was the firearm industry leading that effort for real change and real safety. Giffords was on the sidelines.

Losing Gambit

None of Giffords’ lambasting the firearm industry is a surprise. She’s grown increasingly frustrated with NSSF because the firearm industry has consistently and routinely shined a light on her half-truths and extremist gun control spin. That’s evident even now.

NSSF is leading the opposition to her and antigun billionaire Michael Bloomberg’s hand-selected puppet David Chipman, whom President Joe Biden nominated to lead the ATF. NSSF ran television advertising for the very first time to inform senators and their voters of Chipman’s gun control ambitions.


This is the man who couldn’t define “assault weapons” when asked under oath but wants to ban them. If he couldn’t, he has openly advocated in Congressional testimony to twist the National Firearms Act to reclassify the semiautomatic Modern Sporting Rifle (MSR) and require all owners to register them and pay a tax – all 20 million-plus in circulation. This is the same Chipman who denigrated gun buyers as “Tiger King” and zombie apocalypse preppers and lied about helicopters being shot down at the stand-off at Waco, Texas.

Giffords calls NSSF extremist, but it’s clear she’s got an axe to grind. She also knows that Americans are embracing their Second Amendment rights in record numbers.

Over 21 million background checks were conducted in 2020 for the sale of a gun. In 2021, that number is topping 11 million so far. She ignores that background checks are being conducted for the sale of firearms at retail and they’re shattering records.

Giffords ignores these truths so America doesn’t uncover the truth of her ultimate goal. Giffords wants to ban MSRs, the most popular-selling centerfire rifle in America, and standard capacity magazines. She supports President Biden’s goal of repealing the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), so activist lawyers can sue the firearm industry into oblivion for the actions of criminals. She supports gun registries so every law-abiding gun owner is on a government watchlist.

Giffords backs the expanded use of so-called “red flag” laws that would do more than disarm gun owners. These laws would also deny them Second Amendment rights without due process. She wants to enact age-based gun bans, to unconstitutionally deny young adults under 21 the ability to exercise their Second Amendment rights.

Giffords’ goal isn’t just more background checks. Her goal is to eliminate lawful gun ownership. That’s the most extremist position out there.

 

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

 

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62 COMMENTS

  1. Typical, using her victim status to stir up emotions over facts!! Anyone ever ask her how she feels about capital punishment or actual law “enforcement” and real punishment?? No answer, eh?

    • I simply could never imagine using an unfortunate event I experienced as leverage to diminish the natural rights of my fellow Americans. It’s simply unfathomable.

      This is how I remind myself that these people are truly enemies of America. They wish to subjugate.

    • She, and her husband who’s using her as a sock puppet, aren’t after “justice”. They are clearly out for vengeance and want to punish everyone regardless of their actual guilt.

    • No better said quote my friend See Australia if you disarm!

      She is a Phoney and if she had any merit she would have stayed office not making bank on a worthless cause causing idiot CARPETBAGGING DemonicRat Losers who moved here in NV to illegally make a law under false pretence and getaway unconstitutionally disrupt my gun rights to make and sell as well as Voting Rights by FIAT Dictatorship away my freedoms to privately sell legal firearms without a NFA and non NFA items the ATF Approved under Obama weapons Sportrifles not listen to Moon bats like Gabby and Diane Feinstein make law to reinstate Assault weapons ban listing guns The She Devil do not-want Americans to own,So her Buddies in China ,and Chicom Joe and Xing Ping can raid us from the south the sky and the beach head !

  2. Howze about a back ground check for voting? Speech?

    nazi’s always out to do away with human and civil rights.

    • “Howze about a back ground check for voting?”

      That, like NICS, would likely require a picture ID… Can’t imagine Gabby or any leftist/progressive allowing that…

      • Yea like the GD motor Voter rule if you just moved heere or trespassed into Calif or refuged in NV you are now considered a legal citizen but ignorant of Sovereign ;law between the USA and get to ILLEGALLY Change Legal Laws kinto Illegal UnConstitutional laws that defy the Bill of Rights like Fag Rights Anti Pro Gun Control Rights Illegal Sanctuary Tax stealing $ for a new Civilisation of 3rd world ignorants and no Religious rights for thee

  3. NSSF can get bent. Purchasing firearms is not indicative of criminal intent. Where is the due process? “BeTtEr BaCkGrOuNd ChEcKs”!? Background checks for firearm purchases are a 2nd and 4th amendment violation at BEST.

    • NSSF said themselves they work with the BATFE.
      The only way I can live in a nest of snakes is to be a snake.

  4. Gifford’s strings are being pulled by money bags who use her like they use anything and everything to promote a deranged agenda that is rooted in racism and genocide. It is obvious those paving the way for Gun Control keep the dark side of Gun Control from her and the useful idiots who strut around thinking they can have honorable standing to rape The Second Amendment.

    Gifford’s time would be better spent going around the country taking down the Gun Free Zone Signs that welcome in criminals so they can do as they please whether it be with a gun, knife, bat, etc. While she is at it she can apologize for all of the racism and genocide throughout history that is attributed directly or indirectly to Gun Control.

    • “Gifford’s time would be better spent going around the country taking down the Gun Free Zone Signs that welcome in criminals so they can do as they please whether it be with a gun, knife, bat, etc. ”

      Actually, this might be one of the most relevant postings in the entire thread.

  5. Not understanding why NSSF accepts the premise that background checks are a good thing if they didn’t have all the errors, lack of data, and false positives.

    It it natural evolution that NSSF will transmogrify into the new iteration of NRA?

    • The NRA is over with To cancel over the COVD 19/ Delta Variant Bull crap lies iis Chicken crap and the vendor’s I deal with are PO and selling Swag gear to offset their Losses

      DR FAUXI needs to be Disposed of of the planet Earth along with B Gates the CCP XING PING of China And now new News Reports of ISIS Attacks killing 13 USMC in Kabul with our LeftBehind weapons? while China watches

      • “The NRA is over with To cancel over the COVD 19/ Delta Variant Bull crap lies iis Chicken crap and the vendor’s I deal with are PO and selling Swag gear to offset their Losses”

        You obviously have no concept of how huge conventions like this are funded or how they operate. I suppose you believe that the membership dues fund all of NRA’s activities, (WLP’s notwithstanding). With the large vendors out of the picture yet having to pay for the square footage, over half of which is now empty, there would be no way to come out even or with an acceptable loss.

        If, by the way, you have additional information that supports your premises or that there are other reasons that a minimum of the 12 largest vendors had decided not to come in light of the reporting in the MSM of the Texas covid resurgence, post the actual names of your contacts and the sources. Otherwise, you are being no different than CNN, MSNBS, NBC, CBS, ABC, DNC, etc.

        Yeah- you saw it on the internet…

  6. The question that should be asked is why is a background check by the FBI required to exercise a civil right? What other civil rights do people like Gabby Giffords think should require background checks?

  7. I have great sympathy for her terrible injury. The pain, the suffering, the loss of motor skills, speech skills, cognition too. She got a terrible raw deal, completely underserved.

    All which adds up to Giffords being the last person to listen to on needed or unneeded gun laws. Her judgement is emotionally and cognitively impaired in the worst way.

    Same deal of Mark Kelly, her husband. His judgement is emotionally compromised. Severely.

    Fixing the holes in NICS makes good sense. But that means sales by FFLs, not the general pubic. It means getting all the data that is already required to be in the system actually reported into it. It means police being required to follow-up on each and every refusal. It means getting wrong data out of the system, stop harassing people who did nothing wrong.

    • To be accurant Giffords was a idiot BEFORE the shooting. That she was shot does not bestow any honors.

      Her POS prog husband is the real evil. How is that we produce so many marxist Navy/AirFarce officers. It must be the no heavy lifting/sweating “culture”.

  8. Gifford hit the bulls-eye dead center (pun intended). Two different Chicago studies as well as numerous police tracings in states across the nation prove that the average gun used in a crime IS NOT stolen rather it is a second hand gun that has been through many hands many times. In one Chicago study the average gun was found to have been 13 years old and sold and resold many times.

    States with lax laws often run thousands of guns into places like New York and Chicago with tough laws making all local and state laws meaningless. Of course letting nut cases and criminals buy all the firepower they want when they can literally walk out of prison or a mental institution and walk across the street to a bar, flea market, gun show or pick up a news paper or log on to a chat site on the internet and buy a second hand gun within minutes is the height of pure insanity and no civilized nation on earth puts up with such absolute madness.

    There is a reason for the much lower gun homicide rates and gun crime in Europe and Japan and that is they have tough gun laws that vet people before they can buy a deadly weapon new or second hand. Here in Capitalvania life is considered cheap and expendable and profit the only god the Far Right really worship.

    Have you ever wondered why Europe and even Japan do not have people sticking guns out of car windows and murdering people because they got cut off in traffic, it is because they vet out all the maniacs that we gladly give second hand guns to 24 hours around the clock, all you need is the cold hard cash to slap in the hands of the greed monger Capitalvanians.

    And before the far right start screaming Japan has no private firearms, guess again you can indeed buy a shotgun or a rifle in Japan but you go through the most strict vetting process on the entire planet. They interview your neighbors, you have 3 meetings with the police who check out any arrest records, you have a mental evaluation and a check on your prior mental medical history, you take safe gun training classes, you takes tests on Japans gun laws, and you must have an approved safe with a diagram of where it is located in your house for surprise inspections. This is how civilized nations prevent mass murder and drug gang wars along of course with treating drug addiction as a disease not a crime.

    Clifford is “dead on”. Pun intended. Recent studies show that the average age of the young male naked viscous ape is 25 years before they reach mental maturity and are able to recognize the short and long term consequences of their actions. If you ever wondered why it is so easy for the military to turn young men into maniacal killer raging beasts now you know. Keeping handguns out of young men’s hands has proven scientifically solid. A bunch of drunken young men armed to the teeth in a bar is a prescription for the never ending gun fights at the OK Corral.

    The continuing dismal and outrageous failure to keep second hand guns out of the hands of nut cases and criminals only results in the public crying for more and more draconian gun bans and when that is actually the cheapest and easiest way out the corrupt Prostitute Politicians, who only want to put your tax dollars in their pockets, and the pockets of the Corporations through Corporate welfare, are only too happy to appease public demands to ban guns. Witness the flood of anti-gun laws passed in recent years at the state and local level and of course with the complete blessing of the gun hating courts. The gun hating courts never met a gun ban they did not love.

    With the average gun owner and average non gun owner and the majority of Republican and Democratic Congressmen all wanting Universal Background Checks it is amazing it has not happened sooner and would have if it had not been for the money the NRA has pored into the greedy pockets of many Congressmen but that is the way our corrupt country was designed to function by the criminals who founded the country. Screw the people and fill the pockets of the corrupt Congressmen with cold hard cash as they step over piles of dead bodies on their way to the bank with bags of money dripping in blood.

    Webster’s dictionary should give the definition of madness and insanity just one definition “The U.S.A.”

    • Perhaps New York and Chicago should do something about their criminal problem, other than releasing them back into society to wreak havoc on the common folk. Also if you don’t like the USA, Europe is looking more your style. We might even take up a collection for your one way ticket.

      • To the Virginian.

        I like the U.S. just fine its people like you that I do not like. And since we Socialists are winning there is no reason to leave. All the gun control laws blessed by the courts prove it. When you have both Conservative and Liberal judges blessing the new laws it should be a hint for people like you to leave. We Socialists will help you pack.

        • LOL, socialists can never win. Even if you win, you lose. Because your plan is puny. Socialism doesn’t work. If you win it is only a matter of time before your new order collapses under your bullshit and incompetence. But you dirt bags haven’t won yet. There is going to be a fight before that happens, and a lot of people will die. I’m old and in poor health, so I know that the economic collapse that comes with civil war will kill me, if I’m not murdered by socialists. I hope it kills you as well. And I hope there is a hell so you and all of your commie buddies can rot there.

        • Mark Levin has an entire new book (a good one) about dacian and his marxist buttbuddies.

          Everyone who gives a damn about the path of the marxist progs should read it (don’t bother dacian, it has no Dr Suess illustrations).

        • Because calling the founding fathers criminals and saying madness and insanity define the US shows your love of your country. I’ll stick around to debate you and add some carbon emissions for your breathing enjoyment. 😉

        • quote—————-Because calling the founding fathers criminals and saying madness and insanity define the US shows your love of your country.. ————-quote

          My error, I should have stated the criminals who founded the U.S. Government. We already had a country and a government under the British before the incompetent George Washington masquerading as a general sat back and let the French win the American greed monger merchants war for them.

    • I’ll gladly submit once every law enforcement agency, every thug gang member, and all CONUS military units give up their weapons.

      Until then I’ll be keeping mine… You know just in case of bad things happening to me and mine.

      • “I’ll gladly submit once every law enforcement agency, every thug gang member, and all CONUS military units give up their weapons.”

        I WOULD NOT. I’m not giving up my rights. Neither would you. Why post statements like this????

      • He has a bottomless pit of hate he is projecting on to others as a way of relieving the guilt he feels for his western privilege.

        • No job, Obiden bonus “unemployment” $, and paid by the word/post is a great “gig” when you’re living in mommies basement. Notice he/she never posts before noon?

      • Too bad there is no feature for muting people like dacian. It would clear out a lot of column inches to block him.

        • “Too bad there is no feature for muting people like dacian.”

          We love us some de-platforming/censorship for the same reason the dims/leftists do; lack of parroting the party line in the echo chamber.

          I have a list of screen names that are time-wasters, and delete them on sight, but wouldn’t go for banning them (it’s just boring to click through so many comments related).

        • “Too bad there is no feature for muting people like dacian.”

          NO! Let them continue to speak!

          All they want.

          If you cannot refute their lies with the truth, or are bothered by having to confront them, what good are your own principles?

          The truth is on “our side”. I prefer to not live in a gated community, even though it’s evident that many around here seem to.

          What is the use of constantly agreeing with each other and slapping each other on the back? There’s no courage needed…

    • Dacian.
      Yup America is a real shthole. A smart person would move to Japan or some place in Europe.
      Then a smart person wouldn’t have to complain about what a shthole America is.

    • “Have you ever wondered why Europe and even Japan do not have people sticking guns out of car windows and murdering people because they got cut off in traffic, it is because they vet out all the maniacs that we gladly give second hand guns to 24 hours around the clock, all you need is the cold hard cash to slap in the hands of the greed monger Capitalvanians.“

      See demographics.

      I’m sure you’re a paid troll, please have better ammunition, see what I did there, than this malfeasance.

    • If Democrats would stop letting the animals out of their cages then none of what you just said would be an issue.

    • “States with lax laws often run thousands of guns into places like New York and Chicago…”

      No, the known criminals that are released without bail, etc. in places like NY and Chicago run the guns, not the states with more sensible and less-restrictive laws. I believe that according to DOJ data during the 1980s, 60+% of all violent criminal activity was committed by persons already having felony convictions and jail time; certainly in “places like New York and Chicago” that number is even higher today.

      Japan is a homogenous society with very little race, religion or societal differences. (I have a number of actual Japanese friends and associates through my work as a college prof who attest to this.) The Japanese people have centuries of compliance attitudes to their governing entities and willingly accept government intrusion into their lives. Americans do not. And be careful of lumping Europe into this mix. Since the Islamification that’s been going on now for the past 20 years or so, the crime rates in many big European cities rival anything the US metro areas can muster. Guns may be tougher to get, killing with bombs, knives and vehices not so much. Dead is dead…

      “Clifford is “dead on”. ” The Big Red Dog?

      “The continuing dismal and outrageous failure to keep second hand guns out of the hands of nut cases and criminals only results in the public crying for more and more draconian gun bans…”

      This is not happening. Proof? Millions of people who once shared your warped point of view on firearms and self-defense are now buying guns themselves- for their own protection. God bless them for finally seeing the light, and for living in one of the only places on the planet where such a move is still possible.

      “With the average gun owner and average non gun owner and the majority of Republican and Democratic Congressmen all wanting Universal Background Checks…”

      Actually, no one really gives a damn about “universal background checks”, per se. What people, including ME want is for crazy people, known criminals and thugs to be disarmed. Not just firearms- disarmed of any means to coerce, harm, rob or intimidate me and my family. That being nearly impossible to mitigate, “the average gun owner and average non gun owner and the majority of Republican and” even “Democratic Congressmen” (the few of whom who are not paying for armed security) want easy access for their own ability to come up with the means to defend themselves from the cretins that are willfully not being denied. Pretty simple, perhaps to much so for people like yourself, or a bureaucratic government focussed only on propagating itself.

      • “What people, including ME want is for crazy people, known criminals and thugs to be disarmed. Not just firearms- disarmed of any means to coerce, harm, rob or intimidate me and my family.”

        Every infringement you list is simply a matter of “common sense”; an opinion, a preference. Every infringement that exists is a matter of “common sense”. But where is the cosmic, universal, unalterable, worldwide standard definition of “common sense” gun laws? And says who?

        • It seems you’ve directed your reply to me. What I “list” is not “common sense”, per se, it is an attempt to maintain self-preservation and an ordered society, one, I assume, that you also would desire to live within.

          But in that your “common sense” narrative, I guess I decide, and at present, have the means with which to preserve it for myself and my family, in better fashion than say, the Portland of NYC authorities.

  9. Dacian, in a gun free world the biggest, toughest thug would fear no one. The second toughest would fear only the first. And so on down to the small and the weak, which means most women, the elderly and children, who would fear all of them.

    Gun prohibition won’t stop a driver, consumed by road rage, from beating another driver to death with a tire iron. A gun in the hands of his victim will. Even if both have firearms, the victim has a better chance of survival than if neither is armed.

    • I suspect that Dacian already knows all that particular since…

      “I shot High Master in NRA across the course high power rifle shooting decades and decades ago.”

      But far be it from me to hold someone with such experience in questionable regard.

  10. One Brain Damaged Idiot Exploiting the Actions of Another Brain Damaged Idiot.
    That’s the Gifford’s Gun Grabbers Group to a T.

  11. @Craig in IA
    “It seems you’ve directed your reply to me. What I “list” is not “common sense”, per se, it is an attempt to maintain self-preservation and an ordered society, one, I assume, that you also would desire to live within.”

    Actually, the reply was meant for the general audience.

    The quote above is justified with wording that fits nicely into the gun control narrative. None of the gun grabbers believe they are trying to make dystopia, but to “civilize” the country.

    Point is, “everyone” believes in gun control; “how much”, is the dispute. (this is the conundrum whenever one unhooks from absolutes).

  12. I have some nasty looking scars and a damaged left lung resulting from an armed robbery gone bad. Walked into a stick up early 1 morning at a gas station back in MN. about 35 years ago. I Don’t blame the business, store owners, gun makers or even the dope the kid allegedly, was on. But put the blame on the punk who chose to shot the guy coming out of the restroom when he was robbing the register. Back ground checks only keep the honest folks honest. Criminals do as they have since humans became human, ignore the rules and morals of society. What makes any of these gun grabbers think writing another law, or prohibiting any type of gun will change that?

    • “What makes any of these gun grabbers think writing another law, or prohibiting any type of gun will change that?”

      “They” do not fear criminals (because “they” are really nice people, who only hang with other really nice people, in really nice places); they fear YOU, the gun owner who is an instant away from “snapping” and going on a shooting spree in really nice places. Law abiding gun owners will follow more and more laws in order to stay law abiding. Those laws are designed to make sure you have a hard time conducting a mass shooting.

      Well, “they” also fear you might use your gun to oppose tyranny, but most of “them” never think that deeply.

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