The push for honesty in political ads already has died. The shortly lived effort to inject honesty into political ads died at the hands of the same people claiming to support it.
For all its fervor over cracking down on Facebook for enabling political ads that support Republicans and President Trump, the Democrat Party is turning a blind eye to one of its wealthiest and highest profile candidates seeking the Democrat Party nomination– former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
During the Super Bowl, Bloomberg ran two 60-second ads that cost his campaign an astonishing $10 million each. Those ads pushed misleading stats and blatant lies with the intent to curry emotional favor for Bloomberg’s primary political objective: thoroughly reform gun laws in this country. In Bloomberg’s world, firearms are a threat to public safety, rather than the most effective form of self-defense known to mankind.
The push for factual political ads formally died when Bloomberg lied about how many “children” die from gunshot wounds. He did so in two ads aimed at claiming people already banned from buying firearms prove the Second Amendment must go.
The first ad falsely claimed 2,900 “children die from gun violence every year” in the United States. The ad has no source and is factually untrue. Federal sources show the average is much lower, at 1,900 annually from 2012 through 2017. That is the most recent five-year period for which information is available.
While 1,900 still sounds high, federal studies show the vast majority directly are involved in criminal activity and have no legal right to own or possess firearms. The firearms used generally are stolen, and the shooting victims often are engaged in criminal activity when the firearm-related death occurs.
Stolen handguns are the weapon of choice among violent youth, not AR-15s and other military-style sporting rifles.
Bloomberg’s second ad cited an 18-year-old refugee from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Suleman Talovic, who killed five people at a Salt Lake City Mall. Talovic, a Muslim refugee, used a shotgun and .38 special revolver to kill five before an off-duty police officer shot him dead.
Talovic did not legally obtain or possess the pistol. He is banned from owning one until age 21. He also used the firearms in a posted gun-free zone, where about 94 percent of all mass-shootings occur.
The man who shot him dead violated the gun-free zone ordinance by carrying concealed. Dozens of law-abiding citizens similarly have stopped potential mass shootings in progress. But Bloomberg’s anti-gun ads claim the “right to live” faces a direct threat from the Second Amendment and the right to own and carry firearms for self-defense.
“It’s the job of law enforcement to have guns and decide when to shoot,” Bloomberg said in response to armed parishioners recently stopping a mass shooting at a West Texas church. “You just do not want the average citizen carrying a gun in a crowded place,” Bloomberg said.
The billionaire anti-gunner has made it his mission to abolish the Second Amendment and remove firearms from civilized society. Bloomberg’s mission includes pushing blatant lies to gain emotional support for a political platform built upon lies.
Bloomberg already has plied state and local elections with massive amounts of financial support to push his anti-gun agenda. The current civil unrest in Virginia is a direct result of Bloomberg’s pre-election lobbying efforts to gain control of the state legislature to enact laws ultimately aimed at removing firearms from law-abiding citizens. He intends to do the same at the national level.
