I don’t expect honesty out of gun control groups. I’m used to them presenting a false image of things, often using really poorly designed research that was predisposed to reach an anti-gun outcome. I’ve spent a lot of time ripping those studies apart, too, because it’s something I truly enjoy in this world.

But sometimes, it’s just not that hard to see the game someone like Giffords is playing.

Take this post from the organization over on X.

Gun deaths take an average of 24 years away from their victims. This epidemic is stealing our futures and sense of safety in our communities, and our leaders are letting it happen. It’s long past time they treat gun violence in America like the public health crisis it is. pic.twitter.com/16DI6xGvNw

— GIFFORDS (@GIFFORDS_org) April 10, 2025

Now, notice the other things put on the chart for a second. Heart disease, diabetes, stroke, Alzheimer’s Disease, all things that afflict the elderly. All are actual diseases that can hit much sooner, but in this day and age, we can treat them for a good long while.

Only poisoning/overdose falls outside of that category, and it’s right up there with “gun deaths.”

Now, the opioid epidemic is killing an awful lot of people, and it’s doing this without anyone actually trying to cause death in most cases. Addiction is a disease, and it’s treated as a disease, but it hasn’t really reduced the death toll.

But “gun deaths” are very different.

The term encompasses all fatalities from a gunshot. This means unintentional gunshot deaths, homicides, and suicides. 

But all except for the unintentional gunshots are the result of someone’s willful decision to pull that trigger and to try and take someone’s life, even if it were their own.

Just about nothing else on that list is remotely similar. Sure, “poisoning/overdose” would likely include some suicides from both poison and overdosing, but most of them aren’t anything of the sort. They’re just things that happen.

Notice how they don’t include car accidents, stabbings, beating deaths, or any other source of fatalities that might skew what they were trying to present here.

See, this isn’t just failing to include data. This is an intentional attempt to mislead people into believing that gun control is necessary.

In other words, they’re lying.

“Gun deaths” aren’t a public health crisis. At most, the things that make people go out and kill one another or take their own lives are a public health crisis. That’s something I can get behind and be willing to help them work toward addressing.

But their fixation on guns is like some kind of sick, reverse fetish.

That, my friends, is a real public health issue, and one that the CDC should devote enormous resources to addressing.

After all, they’ve fed into it for decades. It’s only right that they step up to correct the inane epidemic they’ve helped to create after all these years.

Either way, though, Giffords is just as dishonest as one would expect from an organization founded by a politician who has expressly said she wants “no more guns.”

I’m just going to call them on it, even if they don’t make it difficult to punch holes in their schtick.