In 2022, at the desperate urging of President Joe Biden, the Democratic controlled House of Representatives narrowly passed HR 1808, a bill that criminalized the sale, manufacture, transfer and possession of large swathes of semi automatic weapons and magazines that can hold more than 15 rounds of ammunition. This bill was essentially a replica of the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban, though void of any expiry date. The newfound and ever more egregious attempt to scuttle millions of law-abiding Americans’ right to bear arms had fortunately been snuffled in the senate after a refusal to put it up to a vote. And yet, as the democrats continue in their full frontal slaughter of our constitutional rights in their march towards an authoritarian state, republicans are spineless to do anything and instead will kowtow towards democrat talking points without a hint of shamelessness. Even President Donald Trump, who is a fighter by every measure, has somewhat caved into the ruse of “common sense gun control” after the horrific Florida shooting in 2018, claiming to “take the guns first, due process comes second”. In these perilous times, it is more important than ever to take a closer look at the ruse of gun control and expose the sticky sweet trap hole of power grabbing that the left loves to pedal after every case on gun violence.

Let us start off by looking at the “science” as paraded by deceptive experts. The statistics wielded by these so-called experts often serve to construct a narrative rather than present objective data. How often have you encountered claims like “gun control in X state decreased gun homicide rates by 10,000 percent”? It’s an all-too-familiar refrain, but it highlights how the Left has ensnared us in a battle of numbers, leading us to mistakenly believe that statistics alone are a solid defense. They are not.

In reality, many gun control researchers and liberal think tanks engage in blatant cherry-picking, highlighting studies that bolster their agenda while conveniently ignoring the substantial body of research that fails to support their claims.

The non-partisan RAND corporation found that out of the 123 studies that they considered legitimate in the analyses of over 27000 gun control studies, only 1 out of the over 700 hypotheses had a statistically significant result. This should have closed the door on legitimacy of gun control legislation as an absence of any relation between an investigated variable and effect would have still produced 5 percent of results that were statistically significant by random chance.

But let’s assume that RAND had unrealistic standards of what they considered legitimate and take a closer look at some specific studies that are heavily pushed to the forefront. It doesn’t take more than a second glance to see that these sensationalizing headlines and numbers are parroted because of their shocking results and attention grabbing conclusions, but are based upon the flimsiest of empirical reasoning.

Take the constantly circulated 1993 study by the New England Journal of Medicine for example. The study quickly gained fame and resurfaces every few years as cited proof that keeping a gun in the home increases the risk of homicide rates. The problem? Half of the murders that were included in the research involved weapons that weren’t even guns. Of the ones which did, the researchers failed to even include information on whether the victim’s own gun was involved in the case. Moreover, the study doesn’t account for individual differences that can be controlled for. Professor Aaron Brown, a risk analyst and statistician who also serves as a columnist for Bloomberg explains that “A gun expert with a gun safe in a high crime neighborhood may well be safer with a gun [than] a careless alcoholic in a low crime area who keeps loaded guns in his kids’ closet”.

Aside from suppressing contrary data, gun control researchers have a glaring problem of linking dubious claims to their results.

If you are confused, think back on how an experiment works. To establish that a certain variable had caused the change, every other variable has to remain constant in order to pinpoint the source.

The reason why gun control research is built upon sand is because environmental factors such as the economy, COVID-19, healthcare legislation and societal unrest are impossible to predict and control. And while it is possible to try to account for such factors in forming a conclusion through the data, most researchers don’t bother in order to twist the numbers to fit their purpose.

The result? A conclusion that is heavily marred by possibilities of confusing correlation with causation.

During the Democratic Presidential Primary Debates in 2020, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker had claimed that “when Connecticut did licensing, their shootings dropped, their murders dropped 40%. Suicides dropped by 15%”, referring to the study pushed forward by several Johns Hopkins Researchers in 2015 about the Connecticut Handgun Permit and Eligibility Certificate Act in 1995. While it is true of the statistics that he has cited, a quick look at the background and intricacies of the issue revealed a similar corresponding decrease in gun homicides nationally, even though these measures were only limited to Connecticut. When comparing the two trends, it is clear that Connecticut's law has no statistical significance, meaning that the decreased gun homicide rates could not be attributed to the stringent background checks and permits. What’s even more remarkable is that by 2006, although the law was still on the books, Connecticut’s murder rate had actually surpassed the expected trend and even rose to a peak of 46 percent above the norm. In short, the researchers had not only created an outlandish non-existent link but had also conveniently omitted results during a certain time period to create a biased conclusion.

So what happens if we take external unaccounted factors into consideration? Congress had commissioned a study looking into the effects of the original 1994 Assault Weapons ban and its own findings - again! - revealed a lack of statistical significance.

Now to be clear - a lack of evidence on how gun control legislation impacts homicides and violent crime goes both ways. You could argue that there isn’t clear empirical evidence that having a gun makes people safer too. However, this is where the burden of proof logical fallacy comes in. The responsibility of proof lies with the ones pushing for new change to our constitutional rights - since they are the ones seeking changes to the status quo - and not on us, who seek to defend the parts that aren’t broken.

With all of that said, let’s look beyond the mere statistics and try to cut through the logical loopholes that the Left continues to trap unwitting voters in.

One prevalent argument is that guns have the ability to kill more people than traditional weapons. However, the mere potential for danger does not justify restricting a measure, particularly when it is a constitutional right. A car could kill more people than a knife, but subjecting millions of law-abiding drivers to the chopping block would be nothing short of lunacy. The philosophy of “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people” goes a long way when looking into a lot of these cases as it is more than likely that those intent on harm will find alternative methods, whether through knives, cars, or other means.

But what about the massive gun death rates? First off, half of all gun deaths are the result of suicide. The total number of suicides won’t be prevented by restricting the access of a gun, but rather likely to remain constant through the increase of use of other means such as overdosage. Moreover, the United States still has a larger number of non gun related homicides than even countries like the UK, thus highlighting that our country has more of a crime problem than a gun related one. It’s also important to consider the often-overlooked lives saved by responsible gun ownership. Incidents of individuals using their Second Amendment rights to protect themselves or others rarely make headlines. Not only do mainstream news outlets refuse to circulate the story of heroic men and women exercising their 2nd amendment rights to defend others, but they are also unable to report on a situation that hasn’t occurred. Imagine a would-be assailant privately reconsidering their actions upon noticing an armed citizen. How could researchers ever capture that data?

Furthermore, other countries such as the UK and Australia are often cited as successful cases of gun control that the US should emulate, despite ignoring that these countries have fundamentally different policies and face distinct challenges related to drugs, geography, agriculture, and healthcare. It’s basically comparing apples to oranges as these factors are likely more influential in their crime rates than gun control laws, which - again - lack robust empirical support, despite countless studies. Additionally, both the UK and Australia had low rates of gun-related crimes even before implementing stricter measures, while countries that had high gun related homicides such as Brazil and Mexico still suffer from these problems despite having more restrictive policies than the US.

Another such tactic that these self-described experts love to use is to confuse the concept of cause and effect. By their logic, there are large numbers of guns in neighborhoods rife with violence thus establishing the guns as the cause of such violence. They even cite the numbers that gun violence per capita is higher in conservative states as opposed to bluer states. But consider this: if you lived in a high-crime area, wouldn’t you be more likely to arm yourself for protection? Bringing a firearm into a dangerous situation is a rational response, not a reckless one. The implication that this increases risk is fundamentally flawed.

But what about attempting to remove the gun from the criminal’s hand in order to negate the need for such fervent self-defense? That is simply impossible. Axios reports that 80 percent of shooters responsible for murders in K-12 institutions have stolen the firearm from a law-abiding family member, making such gun licenses and background checks have a negligible effect. Then there is the consideration that criminals who obtain guns illegally would also not be affected since they would continue to have the means necessary to obtain a gun without facing such stringent measures (whose prospects has increased in recent years due to 3D printing technology). What would happen is that ordinary citizens have to spend significant amounts of effort in attending classes, bringing copious amounts of identification documents to even apply for a permit and then waiting long periods up to a year, such as in the case of New York, to fully obtain said permit. When the state mandates such draconian measures, then the right to have a gun is no longer a right but a granted privilege. The combination of all these factors points to a huge drop in legal gun ownership instead of the promised crack down on shooters, and it doesn’t take a PhD to figure out that the exact opposite of the underlying intention would be achieved through such a scheme.

Nevertheless, even if you were successful in taking the guns from every single criminal, having a gun when facing an unarmed assailant or intruder is still infinitely better than facing them without one. A firearm drastically equalizes the prospects of defending yourself from someone of a much more superior stature or physical ability. After all, would you have an easier time sneaking a punch at a home invader in the middle of the night and dodging blows like Ethan Hunt or pressing a trigger? For the majority of us that do not have the physical abilities of a SEAL, I think the answer is fairly obvious.

Moreover, the Left often cites public opinion to justify stricter gun control measures, such as assault weapon bans, without properly analyzing or contextualizing that data. Many polls fail to capture the public’s nuanced understanding of what constitutes an "assault weapon." Opinions are often swayed by emotional rhetoric rather than factual understanding. Some view assault weapons as purely military-style firearms, while others extend the definition to include semi-automatic handguns. But to play devil’s advocate, let’s assume that all such statistics are true. The Founders created the constitution to be resistant to the quick change and hot headedness of the opinions carried by the general public, particularly when it comes to issues concerning their God given rights. And thus, popular sentiment is by no means - and should rightfully remain so- an approval to send such rights under the guillotine.

With all of the above considerations, it should come as glaringly obvious as to why the Left exploits a horrible tragedy of mass shootings to drastically expand their lust for government control instead of facing the underlying issues behind crime head on. To reiterate, we have a crime problem, and not a gun one. While republicans are spineless creatures who are more precipitated with taking the high road instead of standing their ground, they still have the more sensible goals of attacking the core causes of crime by instituting measures to improve the economy, lowering the unemployment rate, encouraging the concept of a complete nuclear family, and establishing tough on crime policies that discourage putting criminals back on streets. Something that Democrats would rather fight to the death before agreeing, as evidenced by their vehement opposition to a bill deporting migrants with sexual offenses.

So where do we go from here?

Mindlessly supporting the GOP is not a solution but an enabling of the current waste machine. We must hold our own politicians accountable for their inability to stand up for the constitution. During the 2024 cycle, establishment GOP PACs and the Speaker of the House had collaborated in a corrupt bargain that oversaw millions of spending in railing against America First and pro 2A challengers to unpopular incumbents. These heaps of money could have been utilized for expanding the republican majority but were used to instead limit it because the mainstream GOP was hell bent on lopping off their own foot to escape the swallowing of a bitter pill that promised change.

The Good news? Despite millions in dark money aimed at quelling dissent, grassroots pro-gun challengers have made impressive strides, often coming close to victory—or even winning—against established incumbents. This should serve as a rallying cry for all citizens to educate themselves about their primary candidates and share that knowledge within their communities. If your incumbent has done nothing to earn your vote, it’s time to consider alternatives. Your voice matters, and every vote is a chance to push back against the entrenched political elite.

While the House majority in 2022 was smaller than it was in 2016, it consists of members with a much stronger voting record, thanks to increased voter engagement in the primaries. Scott Perry, Chip Roy and Jim Jordan are examples of hardcore patriots who are able to sit and even chair important committees when every one of them would have been kept six feet away from leadership a decade ago. SCOTUS has also shot down mass amounts of challenges relating to the 2nd amendment in states like New York, bringing us ever closer to the goal to ensure that our rights are not only preserved, but celebrated.

As we look ahead, the possibility of President Trump reclaiming the presidency looms large. This could usher in not just four years of conservative leadership, but a long-term reshaping of the courts—a necessary bulwark against the relentless assaults on our institutions from the Left.

These recent transformations are only possible through an informed electorate that refuses to turn a blind eye to accountability. It is time to vote to re-elect President Trump and to primary out spineless Republicans like Tony Gonzales, John Cornyn, and Lindsey Graham—those who facilitate the Democrats’ relentless overreach instead of standing firm against it.

We must not allow complacency to dictate our future. Every second of the last 8 years has been a brutal onslaught on conservatives by the media war machine, and their efforts will only intensify if we falter. Our Second Amendment rights deserve more than empty promises; they demand our unwavering vigilance and action. If we harness our collective resolve, we can usher in a new era of liberation for our rights and deliver a resounding repudiation of the Republican Establishment that has failed us.