After last week’s historic Colorado recall, it’s no surprise to see the two recalled former state Senators trotted out to castigate Second Amendment defenders on liberal talk shows. On MSNBC’s “All In with Chris Hayes” last night, Angela Giron (last seen blaming her recall on “voter suppression”) blithely displayed the abject ignorance of those on the Left who salivate at the thought of restricting Americans’ rights to self-defense without knowing anything about the issue.
Here she is claiming that “you couldn’t have any more armed people than” were at the Navy Yard during Monday’s shooting.
Transcript:
[The NRA] is no longer a gun owner’s organization. It’s a manufacturer’s organization. And that’s how they’re benefiting. If you look at their board members, they’re all manufacturers; they’re all making money. And I think that the more we can inform people and inform NRA members about what’s really going on here. It’s just follow the money. And people are dying because of greed and their continuing to convince people that more guns equals safety. And in this case in particular, we can look at, it was a Navy Yard. You couldn’t have any more armed people than in that case right there. We know that that’s not the case; the data doesn’t show that. And so we just have to continue to be out there. [Emphasis added.]
Of course, the Navy Yard, like all military installations, has strict regulations against non-security gun possession:
Excepting military police and troops shooting under supervision at practice ranges, no person (regardless of rank) is today allowed to carry any weapon (including standard service pistols) onto any US military base or to keep any weapon, even stored securely, in his office or personal quarters.
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But that’s not all. Giron, who championed universal background checks in Colorado, also claimed that shooting suspect Aaron Alexis probably wouldn’t have been able to pass a background check had he tried to purchase a gun:
Transcript:
Well in fact we know that in this particular case that this man who went and gunned down people would probably not have passed a background check had he went to purchase some firearms. So I mean what we’ve said all along is, well there is no perfect law, but certainly universal background checks, which 90 percent of Americans agree to and believe in, as well as 60 some percent of NRA members, and limiting capacity to 15 that is so reasonable…
As was widely reported and tweeted Monday evening, Aaron Alexis bought his shotgun legally. By early yesterday afternoon (hours before Giron’s segment aired), various news outlets had reported that Alexis bought the firearm at Sharpshooters Small Arms Range in Lorton, Va., two days before the shooting. An attorney for the store told the media that “the store ran a federal background check on Alexis and it was approved.”
Ex senators Morse & Giron still don't get it. Navy shooter passed TWO background checks. You can't legislate crazy! http://t.co/Tla3BDuoRE
— cowboychacha (@cowboychacha) September 18, 2013
More than two, actually. In addition to the background check performed by Sharpshooters Small Arms Range, Alexis also had to pass background checks in order to obtain a security clearance and a concealed-carry permit.
Clearly, universal background checks wouldn’t have made any difference in Alexis’ case.
It’s not the first time. Tucson, Ariz., shooter Jared Lee Loughner, Virginia Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho, and Aurora, Colo., shooter James Holmes all passed background checks, despite having been previously diagnosed with mental health problems.
Of course, neither Chris Hayes nor Giron’s fellow recallee John Morse did anything to keep Giron from derping into complete stupidity. Luckily for Giron, the segment aired on MSNBC, so hardly anyone actually saw her idiocy.
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