Guns

The Conspiracy to Take Your Guns by Not Taking Them

Throughout the course of the last several years, we've been privileged to witness some doozy conspiracy theories from the far-right. Of course there's the conspiracy to birth a half-Kenyan, half-white boy deep in the heart of Africa then pass him off as Hawaiian in order for him to one day become the president and pass a massive stimulus bill. And there's the conspiracy about the president's army of healthcare enforcement thugs marching through your gated community and forcing you to buy health insurance.

But I think the executive director of the NRA, Wayne LaPierre, wins the prize for the best conspiracy theory of the year (so far).

LaPIERRE: [I]n public, [President Obama will] remind us that he's put off calls from his party to renew the old Clinton [assault weapons] gun ban, he hasn't pushed for new gun control laws, and he'll even say he looked the other way when Congress passed a couple of minor pro-gun bills by huge majorities. The president will offer the Second Amendment lip service and hit the campaign trail saying he's actually been good for the Second Amendment.

But it's a big fat stinking lie, just like all the other lies that have come out of this corrupt administration. It's all part -- it's all part of a massive Obama conspiracy to deceive voters and hide his true intentions to destroy the Second Amendment in our country. [...]

Did you follow that? By not pushing for "new gun control laws" and even allowing pro-gun legislation to move forward, the president is actually preparing to take your guns.

Interesting. So if this is the president's strategy -- plotting to do the opposite of what he's actually doing -- then the far-right should be thrilled with his record so far. All of the far-left liberal policies they've accused him of passing are actually far-right policies in the waiting. I smell a President Obama landslide in 2012 with huge conservative support.

(This post is written as part of the Media Matters Gun Facts fellowship. The purpose of the fellowship is to further Media Matters' mission to comprehensively monitor, analyze, and correct conservative misinformation in the U.S. media. Some of the worst misinformation occurs around the issue of guns, gun violence, and extremism, the fellowship program is designed to fight this misinformation with facts.)