ColoradoPols did us a favor yesterday by trotting out some of the ridiculous misinformation delivered by opponents of gun-safety laws when Democrats passed those laws in 2013. And Pols pleaded with local reporters to correct such falsehoods if they pop up this year.
As a example of what should be done, see a 2013 Denver Post editorial that corrected GOP Sen. Kent Lambert's statement, cited in the Pols post yesterday, that lawmakers had "effectively banned gun ownership."
Labert's statement, the Post wrote, was "not supported by the facts."
Duh, you say, but as Pols pointed out, that's what we need when our elected leaders stray from the obvious facts.
And it's also what we need when elected officials stray into wild hyperbole that may not be demonstrably incorrect per se but should be called out... as wild hyperbole.
Last time around, for example, we heard this from respectable people under the gold dome:
- Lambert said, "And now, you know, with everybody having their guns confiscated or taken away here over the next couple years, almost completely overturning the Second Amendment, what's going to happen to our crime rate?" (BigMedia editorial comment: Two years have passed! Every legal gun owner still has her gun.)
It's bad when a guy like State Sen. Randy Baumgardner claims falsely, as he did in 2013, that "hammers and bats" killed more people in America in 2012 than guns did.
His facts should be corrected.
But the scare tactics about gun confiscation should be confronted as well, with the simple fact that it's been two years now and not a single legal gun holder has lost her weapon.