Skip to content
Search AI Powered

Latest Stories

Dad of Parkland Victim Eviscerates Lindsey Graham for Twitter Thread Supporting Assault Weapons

Dad of Parkland Victim Eviscerates Lindsey Graham for Twitter Thread Supporting Assault Weapons
Phillip Faraone/Getty Images for Politicon // @LindseyGrahamSC/Twitter

The United States is seeing yet another influx of mass shootings, with dozens of deaths in March alone. Shootings occurred everywhere from California to Colorado to Georgia and beyond.

Exacerbating the gun murders in the United States is the availability of assault weapons—semiautomatic firearms with detachable magazines designed to kill as many people as possible.


For years, advocates of common sense gun law reform have advocated for the return to an assault weapons ban, saying that weapons of war shouldn't be permitted on America's streets.

Right on schedule, Republicans have painted the calls for these bans as a move to infringe on the Second Amendment right to bear arms, insisting that these mass shootings with stratospheric body counts are the price of so-called freedom.

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who's received nearly $60 thousand in campaign donations from the National Rifle Association, recently tweeted a thread in support of keeping assault weapons available in the United States.

The thread began with a video of him firing one.



Graham insisted that AR-15s are necessary in situations like natural disasters, and he misleadingly claimed that the assault weapons ban instituted in 1994, which was riddled with exemptions and loopholes, resulted in "no change in crime."

Mass shooting deaths after the weapons ban marginally dropped, but these deaths stratospherically rose after the ban expired in 2004.

According to the Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery, pre-ban mass shootings resulted in a death toll of 68 from 1982 to 1993. When the ban was in effect from 1994 to 2004, the death toll dropped to 53. But in the years 2005 to 2017, after the ban was lifted, the mass shooting death toll was 309—nearly six times higher than when assault weapons were banned.

But beyond raw data, these deaths affect the lives of untold numbers of people who've lost a loved one from gun violence.

Fred Guttenberg was the father of Jaime Guttenberg, a 14 year old student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. In 2018, a shooter wielding an AR-15 entered the school and murdered 17 people, with Jaime Guttenberg among them.

Since then, Fred Guttenberg has devoted his life to activism in support of common sense gun law reform.

He continued that work with a swift rebuke responding to Graham's video.

Guttenberg said Graham was promoting violence and showing potential mass shooters which weapons would be most effective in murdering others.

Guttenberg was met with widespread agreement for his response.




And Guttenberg was far from the only one to decry Graham's promotion of assault weapons.





Graham's thread comes less than two weeks after he gave a bizarre Fox News interview fantasizing about protecting his home from "the gang" with an assault weapon.

More from News

Donald Trump
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Trump Blasted For Announcing New Additions To The White House Lawn As Global Tensions Escalate

President Donald Trump was criticized after announcing that two new flagpoles would be added to the North and South Lawns of the White House—not the greatest look amid heightened global unease as tensions between Israel and Iran ramp up.

According to the Associated Press, Trump watched as a crane installed the newest flagpole on the South Lawn, remarking, “It’s such a beautiful pole.” He later returned to the site to salute as the American flag was raised for the first time.

Keep ReadingShow less
Screenshots of Donald Trump from CNN supercut
CNN

Trump Mocked For 'Two Weeks' Iran Deadline With Supercut Of All His 'Two Weeks' Promises

President Donald Trump has a history of promising to resolve problems within "two weeks," and a new viral supercut mocks him for all the times he's said as much—including right now with tensions in the Middle East higher than ever.

Trump said Thursday he will decide within two weeks whether to involve U.S. forces directly in the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran, citing what he called a “substantial chance” for renewed nuclear negotiations with Tehran.

Keep ReadingShow less
red flag with pole on seashore
Seoyeon Choi on Unsplash

People Break Down The 'Silent Red Flags' Folks Tend To Ignore In Relationships

A red flag has come to mean any warning sign in life, in addition to the literal red flags that are placed on beaches or industrial sites to warn people of danger.

People will respond to situations by saying, "That’s a red flag." But before that language evolved, they'd just call them "warning signs."

Keep ReadingShow less
Ted Cruz; Tucker Carlson
The Tucker Carlson Show

Tucker Carlson And Ted Cruz Get Into Shouting Match Over Iran In Bonkers Interview Clip

Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz—a harsh Donald Trump critic-turned-MAGA minion—sat down with fired Fox News personality Tucker Carlson for the conservative influencer's self-produced online content,The Tucker Carlson Show, for the Tucker Carlson Network.

On Tuesday, Carlson shared a 1.5-minute clip revealing that things got contentious when the pair touched on the Trump administration's escalating tensions with Iran.

Keep ReadingShow less
Donald Trump; Barack Obama
Suzanne Plunkett-Pool/Getty Images; Scott Olson/Getty Images

Resurfaced Trump Tweet Criticizing Obama Over Iran Comes Back To Bite Him

Amid tensions with Iran, President Donald Trump was criticized for hypocrisy after social media users resurfaced a 2013 tweet in which he accused former President Barack Obama of planning an attack on Iran because of his "inability to negotiate properly."

Trump has declined to clarify whether the U.S. is edging closer to launching strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, following a warning from Iran’s supreme leader against any attack and a rejection of Trump’s demand for surrender.

Keep ReadingShow less