On March 4, Gabby Giffords joined with Democrat lawmakers on Capitol Hill to push for background checks at gun shows as a way of “stopping violence.” The NRA responded by tweeting a Breitbart News report which pointed out that Giffords’s January 2011 attacker—Jared Loughner—passed a background check to acquire the Glock with which he carried out his attack.
In other words, the background check was impotent to stop his heinous actions.
And the Breitbart News report showed that Loughner wasn’t an aberration. Rather, Jerad and Amanda Miller (Las Vegas), Elliot Rodger (Santa Barbara), Ivan Lopez (Fort Hood 2014), Darion Marcus Aguilar (Maryland mall), Karl Halverson Pierson (Araphoe High School), Paul Ciancia (LAX), Aaron Alexis (DC Navy Yard), James Holmes (Aurora theater), Nidal Hasan (Fort Hood 2009), and other gunmen, all passed background checks for the weapons they used as well.
But Slate magazine claims that pointing these things out is “a new low.” As if highlighting the fact that background checks have been impotent to stop criminals is something that can’t be mentioned right now because Giffords is pushing background checks as a way to stop criminals.
Slate tries to accomplish this by heaping shame on the NRA for daring to highlight the truth about Jared Loughner passing a background check. They claim the NRA’s willingness to point out the truth about the impotency of background checks is basically an attempt to “taunt a victim of gun violence” who is trying to help others.
Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.