Trump has warned us about fake news. The left rails against it, but the truth is that they are regularly caught red handed. This is a roundup of the biggest fake stories just from the last week. They are all leftist and mainstream, and they range from injecting fallacies into real stories to completely made up events.
We’ll start with the heavy stuff. Jimmy Kimmel’s monologue is the current rallying point for the anticipated surge of gun-control activism from the left. There is a lot of falsehood at the center of this movement, so we’ll start with the major problems in Kimmel’s rant.
For starters, Kimmel suggests that the NRA somehow controls the federal government through magical lobbying. The NRA spends far less money on lobbying than any other organization of their size, mostly because the NRA isn’t rolling in cash. It’s funded entirely by membership fees and donations. The NRA does wield political power, but only because it has millions of members and represents a significant voter block. We don’t see the left decrying union money spent on lobbying, even though it’s the same thing.
Kimmel also mentioned new legislation that makes it easier for the mentally ill to get guns. The actual legislation does the opposite. It gives judges the power to remove 2nd Amendment rights when a person can be shown to be mentally incompetent. We won’t even get started on the dangers of giving the government subjective power over fundamental rights.
Along that line, Kimmel and leftist media continue to harp on the danger of silencers. Any gun enthusiast knows that silencers are a myth. Suppressors are a real thing, but they don’t silence gunshots. Instead, they lower the volume from literally deafening to just really, really loud. The bullets are still breaking the sound barrier, and that’s still an extremely noisy process.
Perhaps the most frustrating misnomer from the left is around machine guns. They love to use the term assault weapon (which has a legally fluid definition that has changed many times over the years) instead of the proper term: machine gun. A machine gun has a clear definition and refers to any firearm that can shoot more than one bullet per squeeze of the trigger. Officials still haven’t told us what the Vegas shooter was using, but the sound clips make it clear that he was achieving rapid fire on par with machine guns. Don’t let anyone lie to you. Machine guns have been illegal since prohibition. There are ways to legally purchase machine guns, but it requires extensive licensing and is strictly regulated by the ATF. It if fully regulated at a federal level and state laws are entirely irrelevant.
Finally, Kimmel and the left continue to push an idea that anyone who supports the 2nd Amendment doesn’t care about the people lost to tragedy. Ben Shapiro had a great response to this, and I’ll paraphrase him now. We can agree on what matters and even share goals while sharply disagreeing on what policies will best get us there. That sums guns, but there are still some other false headlines you should see.
In the midst of the Puerto Rican disaster, fake news has accused Trump of defaulting payments on a golf course in the territory and leaving it with a $33 million tax deficit. Here’s the truth: the golf course has Trump’s name on it, but he is in no way affiliated with it. The naming was just an attempt to cash in on his brand.
In the narrative that cops are evil, a bunch of news circulations say a boy in Gary, Alabama was killed by police when his saxophone was mistaken for a machine gun. This never happened. In fact, there is no Gary, Alabama. The photos circulating with the story were taken in St. Louis several years ago, and no saxophone or machine gun was involved.
This one is a favorite because it originated with the Washington Post. They claim that Trump banned Congress from visiting Puerto Rico because they criticized his hurricane response. First, that’s not within Trump’s power. Lawmakers are still citizens and can travel anywhere you and I can go.
Second, the actual story is that Trump was arranging a trip for lawmakers to visit the territory. The flight was cancelled due to weather. Since then, several members of Congress have visited the island and several more have made plans to do the same.
Fake news is everywhere. It is deliberate and focused. We can only beat it by staying on our toes and rising above the preponderance of falsehoods. Thankfully, there are plenty of resources to accomplish this. Stay vigilant out there.