Al Qaeda attacked us on 9/11, so let’s invade Iraq. Most Americans fell for this false logic before President George W. Bush embarked the American military on indefinite actions in the Middle East. It was false and they knew it, but they found intelligence speculating about weapons of mass destruction and ran with it. This was an emotional response to a problem, a response that did not offer a solution to the triggering event.

Today, Democrats have taken on the mantle of establishing false premises to promote seemingly related parts of their agenda. Just as Americans were conned into thinking invading Iraq was somehow going to prevent the next 9/11, Democrats are trying to con us again into believing their legislation is going to stop the next mass shooter. But the facts don’t jibe with their claims. The legislation many Democrats are pushing through is for universal background checks. They’re playing on American ignorance to get their agenda done.

Representative Veronica Escobar’s constituents are the ones affected by the El Paso shooter. This is why she’s being looked to by her caucus to lead the charge to push Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to bring their legislation to the Senate floor. But instead of representing the people of El Paso, she’s using their suffering to guilt Republicans into falling in line with their legislation.

Here’s an inconvenient fact: Had the legislation been in place before the shooting, it would have had zero effect on the outcome. The alleged shooter passed a background check. Why didn’t it stop him? Because in most situations like these, background checks do not work. The purpose of background checks is to prevent criminals and known mentally ill individuals from acquiring firearms. They’re already in place. The legislation to make them “universal” will only harm private sellers and add a new layer of bureaucracy to the mix.

But that fact isn’t stopping Escobar from misleading the people of El Paso into thinking the legislation would have helped them. She knows it wouldn’t and she hopes her constituents are too stupid to realize this.

This has to stop. Democrats are aware the laws they promoted would not have stopped the El Paso shooter, but they continue invoking their families like their political pawns.

If your laws were passed before, @RepEscobar, they still wouldn't have stopped the El Paso shooter. https://t.co/hS551NwLx2

— JD Rucker (@JDRucker) August 20, 2019

If we want to slow gun violence, there are ways without gun control. If anything, laws should be looser, not stricter. But Democrats continue to lie to promote their agenda. Their reason: You never let a serious crisis go to waste.

We are currently forming the American Conservative Movement. If you are interested in learning more, we will be sending out information in a few weeks.

Since before the 2016 election, I’ve said President Trump is malleable. He’ll listen to his base when we speak, and if his White House advisers are giving him bad advice, all we have to do is keep shouting the truth. He’ll hear us. He’s listening.

Following the mass shootings in Gilroy, El Paso, and Dayton, many Republicans started caving to calls for gun control. The President himself declared a need to take action and turned to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to find solutions they could put on his desk. Some of those closest to him, such as his daughter Ivanka and Jared Kushner, took the opportunity to promote their own progressive agenda and coax the President into considering “common sense” gun control measures.

Many in the base erupted. Not everyone did; there were conspicuous “conservatives” who took the President’s initial cue regarding gun control and thought this meant they needed to parrot his perspectives instead of trying to convince him otherwise. Will these same people now backtrack as the President has signaled he will no longer consider gun control legislation? I hope so. There’s no shame in following the President’s lead, and as he comes to his senses, so too should those who supported his calls for gun control.

“A lot of the people that put me where I am are strong believers in the Second Amendment, and I am also. And we have to be very careful about that. You know, they call it the slippery slope. All of a sudden everything gets taken away. We’re not going to let that happen.” – President Trump

As Politico reported, the President’s shifting tone is already having a positive effect on many Republicans who had jumped on the gun control bandwagon. But McConnell isn’t one of them. He’s annoyed, which is a good thing.

Gun control is unconstitutional and ineffective. It’s an emotional response to the serious problems we have with crime and mental illness. We need real solutions, not gut reactions. It’s good to see the President take the lead against gun control.

We are currently forming the American Conservative Movement. If you are interested in learning more, we will be sending out information in a few weeks.

Yesterday, the first Republican signed onto an “assault weapons” ban. Pete King, New York’s RINO Congressman, spoke out against the weapons that were used in recent mass shootings in Gilroy, El Paso, and Dayton.

“They are weapons of mass slaughter,” King said. “I don’t see any need for them in everyday society.”

Let’s get one thing out of the way before continuing. It doesn’t matter whether Pete King or anyone else sees a need for particular firearms in everyday society. That’s not their call. He was elected with the sole purpose of defending the Constitution, and that includes the 2nd Amendment. But even if pretend his actions are not betrayals to his oath of office, he’s ignoring the very thing leftists love to ignore: The 2nd Amendment is the people’s protection against a tyrannical government, whether foreign or domestic. Those who believe our government could never turn tyrannical are buying into the same con job the people of Venezuela believed in when their government was playing nice and taking guns.

One can argue that if it weren’t for the 2nd Amendment, this nation would have already fallen to the hands of oppression from Washington DC or elsewhere.

With that understood, let’s be empathetic conservatives and see things from the left’s perspective for a moment. They’re scared because bad people use AR-15s and other “assault weapons” to commit mass shootings. This fear is driving the calls for banning them. People fear death. It’s understandable. But less than 1% of 1% of AR-15s in America are used to commit crimes. This means 99.99% of AR-15 owners are law abiding or at least aren’t using their firearms in their crimes. It also means millions will have their right to defend themselves against tyranny or crime hampered tremendously. Furthermore, those of us who are not “assault weapons” owners will be less safe; the presence of such firearms is often what keeps bad elements at bay, even if they’re not directly in our hands.

But since we’re trying to see things from the left’s perspective, let’s assume they feel the need to be protected from the evils of “assault rifles” and in our post-truth society, their feelings supersede our facts. Fine. Then in such a world, we must be cognizant of the various other things that are actually much more dangerous than “assault rifles.” If people need to be protected from those, then there are many other things that need to be banned as well. After all, a lung cancer death is just as heartbreaking as a gunshot death. Dead is dead. If we’re trying to prevent unnecessary death, then let’s start banning the things that kill us unnecessarily.

It took three minutes to compile this list of seven things in a quick brainstorming session with my nephew. He’s 12. I’m sure if we put more time into it we could have come up with dozens more.

Cigarettes

The obvious place to start the list is with something that more people oppose than firearms. The consensus among scientists is that smoking is bad for your health and will eventually kill you. This is, of course, common sense. So why are they still legal? Shouldn’t they have been banned the moment we learned they’re the primary cause of multiple top killers in the health arena like lung cancer and heart disease?

One can argue that since they kill slowly, they’re not as evil. But my mother, who died earlier this month from lunch cancer, would have argued her suffering at the end of her life was harder than dying quickly.

Doctors

If you want to only ban “quick” killers, then let’s ban doctors. Medical malpractice results in a quarter-million unnecessary deaths in America each year, and many of these deaths happen suddenly. Those dastardly deviants with their medical degrees use ultra-sharp scalpels and heart-stopping drugs almost every day! How can they be allowed to continue their reign of terror?

Oh, but doctors usually save lives. Fine. We’ll give them a pass for now, but we have our collectivist eyes on them. But there are things that don’t save lives that are extremely deadly…

Knives

For every person who dies from a rifle shot – whether it’s considered by the leftist elite to be an “assault rifle” or not – there are 100 people who are killed by knives or other sharp objects like swords, machetes, battle axes (though statistics are slim on actual battle axe deaths), spears, scalpels (strike that, those are normally used by doctors and we already gave them a pass), and box cutters. Assault knives are a much more prolific weapon of choice than “assault weapons” when one wants someone else dead.

The argument against banning knives is that we need them for cooking. Perhaps it’s time to only allow trained cooking professionals to have them, properly licensed, of course. We should also consider laws that all knives need to be kept in knife safes.

Unhealthy Foods

Speaking of foods, how in the world is McDonald’s still in business in 21st century America? It’s… appalling. Heart disease is the nation’s leading cause of death, and fast food has to play a major role in this with their saturated fats and nutrient-challenged offerings of sustenance.

Naysayers may complain that nobody’s forcing anyone else to eat unhealthy foods. It’s a choice and therefore shouldn’t be banned. So if the criteria is choice, there’s a killer in many of our backyards that imposes its own will on others…

Dogs

Death is not the only problem with mass shootings. People are often injured by them as well. In fact, there are normally many more mass shooting survivors who are injured but not killed. The same can be said about dogs. These potentially vicious creatures are running amok through the streets seeking a human (or cat) to devour. The death toll may be low, but with around 4.5 million dog bites reported each year and 6,000-13,000 serious enough for hospitalization (where the victims then have to contend with the aforementioned dangers of doctors), we can’t overlook our canine “friends.”

But they’re not people. PETA will have a problem if we start targeting animals. We need to keep this list focused on people. And some of the most deadly people in the world aren’t hiding in the shadows committing their acts of violence. They’re not only doing it in public. Many of them are actually getting paid for it.

Sports

If you watch American television, you’ve likely come across the grizzly actions performed by athletes. Boxers, hockey players, football players, mixed martial artists… the harm they do is unfathomable. And don’t get me started on why no criminal charges are filed whenever someone charges the mound and starts a bench-clearing brawl. These ruffians are a menace to society and we’re giving our hard-earned dollars to their owners (wait, we’re not supposed to say that anymore) so we can actually WATCH this violence taking place.

But it’s not just adults. Children are exploited constantly, forced to “play” games that lead to 3.5 MILLION injuries per year. Sorry folks, but this is unacceptable.

And lastly, speaking of children…

Abortion

Somewhere around 50,000,000 Americans have been killed by abortion since Roe v. Wade. Full stop.

Obviously, this satirical look at the dangers of this world is not really calling for a ban on dogs, guns, or anything else.

Emotions are the singular driving force behind calls for “assault weapons” bans. The statistics don’t support them. Common sense doesn’t support them. The Constitution doesn’t support them. If we are being rational, gun bans should be taken off the table.

We are currently forming the American Conservative Movement. If you are interested in learning more, we will be sending out information in a few weeks.