Top Seven Anti-Gun Hypocrites

Proponents of more gun control for American citizens are frequently people who live their lives surrounded by good guys with guns. Moreover, gun control proponents are also people who use tragedies as an opportunity to push more gun laws even when said laws would have done nothing to prevent the tragedy that occurred.

Occasionally, all these hypocritical qualities are found in one person or, in this case, seven people.

Hillary Clinton: Clinton is currently pushing to gut the Second Amendment via a reversal of District of Columbia v. Heller (2008). Heller reasserted that the Second Amendment protects a preexisting individual’s right to keep and bear arms, rather than a collective one, and it struck down the DC gun ban. Moreover, Clinton is campaigning for president on a platform of universal background checks and an expansion of instant background checks into indefinite background checks. She has said the Australian gun ban is “worth looking at” for U.S. gun policy.

Clinton’s hypocrisy on the subject is evident in the fact that she spends every waking moment with the benefit of being surrounded by good guys with guns. In fact, Breitbart News previously reported that Clinton has enjoyed tax-payer funded armed security for decades. Yet her policies and proposals will ultimately eliminate average Americans’ ability to keep their families safe with a firearm.

President Barack Obama: Like Clinton, Obama’s hypocrisy is seen in his relentless push for laws that make it more difficult for law-abiding citizens to acquire a gun for self-defense, while he simultaneously benefits from the most advanced armed security in the world, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Another display of his hypocrisy on the subject is visible in the recently reintroduced “smart gun” push. Police departments are already lining up against what they see as Obama’s intention to use them as a proving ground for battery-operated guns designed to shoot only under certain conditions. Obama has even hinted at Department of Defense, Justice Department, and Homeland Security use of smart guns, but he has said nothing about leading by example and arming his Secret Service security detail with guns that run off batteries and only shoot under certain conditions.

Michael Bloomberg: Bloomberg is not only a gun control proponent personally, but also funds gun control groups that lobby at the state and federal level for new laws that make it harder for law-abiding citizens to acquire or carry the guns they need for self-defense. Bloomberg famously pledged $50 million during the 2014 mid-term elections to defeat pro-Second Amendment candidates, yet he spends his days surrounded by a large contingent of good guys with guns.

During a February 2016 appearance on Aaron Klein Investigative Radio, comedian Jackie Mason ripped into Bloomberg for this bold show of hypocrisy:

[Bloomberg’s] standing there with 12 bodyguards, telling you that you shouldn’t have a gun to protect you, while he has 12 guys protecting him! As if his life counts, but yours is not important? If guns are not important and nobody should have a gun to protect himself, why does Bloomberg have 12 bodyguards? Why doesn’t he stand there with 12 rabbis? Why do they have guns? Instead of guns they should have pastrami sandwiches.

Gabby Giffords: Former Congresswoman Giffords’ relentless campaign for background checks as a way to make Americans safer, and as a response to the heinous attack on Sandy Hook Elementary School, approaches the pinnacle of anti-gun hypocrisy. This is true for two reasons: 1. The gunman who tried to kill Giffords in 2011, Jared Loughner, passed a background check for the Glock he used in attacking her. 2. The gunman at Sandy Hook Elementary stole his guns, thereby proving that no amount of gun control at point-of-sale would have prevented him from carrying out his attack.

Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV): Manchin’s hypocrisy is evident in that he treated the attack on Sandy Hook Elementary as an opportunity to push more gun control onto the backs of law-abiding Americans. He famously pushed an expansion of background checks in response to the attack, then, on April 14, 2013, admitted that the checks would not have prevented the attack, had they been in place beforehand. 

Amy Schumer: Schumer has been on a campaign for more gun control ever since John Russell Houser allegedly shot and killed two people during a showing of Trainwreck in LaFayette, Louisiana, on July 23, 2015. Since that attack, Schumer has campaigned to expand background checks and to bar the mentally ill from buying guns. Missing in both these campaigns are two facts: 1. Houser passed a background check for his gun, which he purchased at an Alabama gun store. 2. It is already illegal for anyone involuntarily committed to mental institutions to buy guns.

Perhaps the most glaring omission from Schumer’s gun control push is an admission that the theater in which the shooting occurred had 100 percent gun control in the form of a ban on the possession of firearms. As with the April 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, the July 2012 Aurora theater shooting, the Sandy Hook Elementary School attack, both Fort Hood shootings, and the October 1, 2015, Umpqua Community College shooting, the attack that occurred during the showing of Trainwreck occurred in a gun-free zone.

Bob Costas: On December 2, 2012, Costas used NBC’s NFL broadcast to push more gun control in the wake of a murder/suicide involving Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher. He quoted columnist Jason Whitlock as saying, “Handguns do not enhance our safety. They exacerbate our flaws, tempt us to escalate arguments, and bait us into embracing confrontation, rather than avoiding it.”

Breitbart News reported that Costas made these comments while sitting in a venue, an NFL game, where he benefited from a massive amount of armed security, particularly police officers and other good guys with handguns.

In addition to Clinton, Obama, Bloomberg, Giffords, Manchin, Schumer, and Costas, honorable mention for anti-gun hypocrisy goes to Everytown for Gun Safety, the leadership of which benefits from being protected by good guys with guns, even as the group campaigns against allowing law-abiding citizens to carry guns on college campuses for self-defense.

AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.