Everytown’s Gun Myths Campaign Uses Defunct Data Sources

Everytown rolled out a new anti-gun campaign this week titled “Debunking Gun Myths at the Dinner Table.” It crossed our desk here at The Truth About Guns the same way most Bloomberg-funded propaganda does, without warning and usually with a few unintentional laughs baked in.
Right away, it was obvious this one was different. Not the type of messaging that could threaten anyone’s rights. Just bizarre. Odd enough to make you stop and read twice. Even by Everytown’s standards, the writing was sloppy and unhinged, something you don’t often see from a group with essentially unlimited cash courtesy of Michael Bloomberg and his network of gun control outfits.
Everytown set up each claim as a “myth” followed by what they insisted was a “fact.”
None of the so-called facts lined up with logic or reality, and most were sourced to “Everytown Research,” which explains a lot. What followed was a series of myth fact pairings that only reinforced one thing: whoever wrote this has never had a serious conversation with anyone outside their own bubble.
The first was the strangest.
- Myth criminals will always find a way to get their hands on a gun
- Fact laws like background checks stop gun sales to criminals every day. Since 1994 these laws have blocked more than 5 million gun sales to people who could not legally own guns
This so-called myth is true. Criminals always find a way to obtain firearms. They are not walking into licensed gun shops and crossing their fingers. They steal guns or buy guns that someone else stole. Career criminals have never cared about background checks and never will.
- Myth guns don’t kill people people kill people
- Fact people with guns kill people and more efficiently than people without guns. The US gun death rate is 13 times that of other high income countries
Not a myth. Leave a handgun on a table and it will stay there forever without harming anyone. As for Everytown’s statistics, its source, GunPolicy.org, no longer exists. Visit the site, and you get a placeholder message promising it might return someday.
It gets stranger. The group reviving the site Global Action on Gun Violence is registered as an agent for the governments of Mexico and the Bahamas.
So much for Everytown’s data.
- Myth strong gun laws don’t work. Look at Chicago
- Fact Chicago proves why we need strong federal gun laws. Many crime guns recovered in Chicago and in other states with strong gun violence prevention laws are trafficked from states with weaker laws
Everytown’s myth is not a myth. And if their claim is correct that local and state laws don’t work, then why do we have them? By their own logic, Everytown should be first in line calling for all these ineffective laws to be repealed.
- Myth the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun
- Fact if more guns made us safer America would be the safest country in the world. Instead we have a gun homicide rate 26 times higher than other high income countries
Again, not a myth. And again, the numbers they cite are from the same dead website. They also refuse to define what qualifies as a “high income” country, which makes the comparison meaningless.
- Myth arming teachers will keep kids safer in schools
- Fact arming teachers ignores research that shows a gun increases risks to students and teachers. School safety experts and law enforcement oppose arming teachers
Not a myth. The Florida Parkland Commission, formed after the 2018 murders at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, came to the opposite conclusion. The commission recommended allowing teachers to volunteer, undergo background checks, complete training, and join the state’s School Guardian program. The chair, Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, wanted armed, well-trained teachers in place to stop killers when every second counts. The commission was clear that trained armed teachers save lives.
- Myth gun makers don’t sell weapons of war to civilians
- Fact many gun makers sell AR15s and other assault weapons nearly identical to the firearms used by soldiers in battle to the general public. These firearms have been used in the country’s deadliest mass shootings
Not a myth. And the claim that civilian ARs are “nearly identical” to military rifles is nonsense. They are not close. They’re better.
Everytown Urges Its Gun-Hating Followers To Ruin Family Thanksgiving Dinner—Again
Read the full article here







