If you’re like me, you probably don’t have that many gun-ban advocates in your family. And the ones that lean in that direction likely aren’t quick to bring it up at rare family social occasions.
In fact, with three generations of concealed carry practitioners gathered around the family table for Thanksgiving dinner, my family’s celebration of thanks is likely the most dangerous place a deranged individual could choose to attack. ’Nuff said.
Polite families typically don’t talk politics during holiday meals, especially a holiday set aside to give thanks for our many blessings. But the folks at Everytown for Gun Safety are once again rallying the arguers, encouraging anti-gun advocates to engage in a verbal battle with their pro-gun family members over turkey and dressing (showing what truly crap people they are for wanting to foment discord at a time people should be putting differences aside and trying to get along and show “thanks.”)
In a November 21 post titled “Debunking Gun Myths at the Dinner Table,” the organization claims to have developed a series of graphics to help their supporters “fork over facts” to their redneck family members. In fact, the graphics provide a plethora of lies and misinformation for supporters to make fools out of themselves this Thanksgiving.
Let’s look at a handful of their “myths” and corresponding “facts.”
Myth: Criminals will always find a way to get their hands on a gun.
Everytown (So-Called) Fact: Laws like background checks stop gun sales to criminals every day.
The Real Truth: Most criminals buy their guns on the street, get them from fellow gang members or steal them, not acquire them from a licensed gun dealer. Those who are stopped by background checks should be charged with a federal felony instead of simply going and buying a gun from another criminal.
Myth: Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.
Everytown “Fact”: People with guns kill people, and more efficiently than people without guns.
The Real Truth: A gun is an inanimate object. While people with guns might kill people more efficiently, guns absolutely do not kill people without someone aiming them and pressing the trigger. Guns also save a lot of people who need to defend themselves including the elderly against younger, more able-bodied attackers and domestic violence victims against typically larger and more-able bodied abusers.
Myth: Strong gun laws don’t work, look at Chicago.
Everytown “Fact”: Chicago proves why we must push for strong federal gun laws.
The Real Truth: Strong gun laws don’t work, look at Chicago.
Myth: The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.
Everytown “Fact”: If more guns everywhere made us safer, America would be the safest country on earth.
The Real Truth: Good guys with privately owned guns stop hundreds of thousands of bad guys with guns every year, saving countless lives. If good guys with guns didn’t stop bad guys with guns, why would police officers be armed?
Myth: Having a gun for self-defense makes individuals and their families safer.
Everytown “Fact”: Guns in the home increase the risk that anyone in the house, including children, will die by firearm suicide or unintentional injuries.
The Real Truth: Guns in the home save thousands upon thousands of lives every year. If many of those people using guns to protect themselves in their homes would not have had access to a firearm, they and their family members would likely be dead, not celebrating another Thanksgiving.
Speaking of which, have a Happy Thanksgiving! And try not to find yourself baiting an anti-gun family member into a political conversation—it’s unfair to have a mental battle with an unarmed opponent!
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