No Gov. McAuliffe, It’s Not Time To Exploit The Scalise Shooting To Push For Gun Control

Matt Vespa | June 14, 2017 12:45 PM

Virginia’s Democratic Gov. McAuliffe thanked the first responders and U.S. Capitol Police for their quick and heroic actions that saved lives during the shooting in Alexandria, Virginia that appears to have targeted Congressional Republicans. Earlier this morning, James T. Hodgkinson, 66, of Belleville, Illinois opened fire on the GOP baseball team that was practicing at Eugene Simpson Park; they were practicing before the annual baseball game between Democrats and Republicans. House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) was shot, along with a staffer to Rep. Roger Williams (R-TX) and two Capitol police officers. Hodgkinson was also shot, but died of his injuries.

The governor’s response was fine, but then we took a left turn into the land of gun control, where he said that there were too many guns on the street, that gun show loopholes needed to be shutdown, and that 93 million Americans are killed by gun violence every day. McAuliffe repeated that outrageous claim twice before a reporter prompted him to correct his statement.

Granted, the governor said, “This is not what today is about” concerning gun control—and he just should have left it there. Sadly, it won’t. We’ve already begun to see the first vestiges of the anti-gun Left trying to exploit this tragedy for their own gain, along with the typical shoddy anti-gun journalism.

NBC has a firearms "expert" on explaining "difference" in rate of fire in semi-auto pistols and semi-auto rifles. pic.twitter.com/1CindQRyQ9
— Jeff Anderson (@amountainpass) June 14, 2017

UPDATE: CBS News tweeted a video clip with the governor's 93 million trip-up. They later deleted it.