Speaker Mike Johnson
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The White House rebuked comments [House Speaker Rep. Mike] Johnson made to Fox News host Sean Hannity on Thursday night, a day after 18 people were killed in two mass shootings in Maine, in which Johnson said that guns are not the cause of America’s unique mass shooting crises.

Saying that it was “not the time” to talk about gun control, he told Hannity, “The problem is the human heart. It’s not guns, it’s not the weapons. At the end of the day, we have to protect the right of the citizens to protect themselves, and that’s the Second Amendment, and that’s why our party stands so strongly for that.”

White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates issued a blistering response to the notion.

“We absolutely reject the offensive accusation that gun crime is uniquely high in the United States because of Americans’ ‘hearts,’” he said. “Gun crime is uniquely high in the United States because congressional Republicans have spent decades choosing the gun industry’s lobbyists over the lives of innocent Americans.”

— Mark Alfred in White House Rips New GOP Speaker’s ‘Offensive’ Mass Shooting Comment

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

95 COMMENTS

  3. So if people start killing using vehicles we need to consider banning cars… good to know… or if they use airplanes we ban planes … right?
    Oh wait…those have already happened and we actually blamed the criminals!

    • Killing using vehicles is nothing new. The largest mass murder the the last 9 years ( July 16, 20140, was done with a vehicle. Killing 84, including 10 children while injuring over 240 and ironically was stopped by gunfire. On December 21,2021 6 people were murdered and 62 were injured by Darrel Brooks Jr. When he drove a SUV through a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin. No mention by anyone for the removal of vehicles from use.

  4. Crime is uniquely high in large Democrat cities where the social norms are now massive drug use and awash with drug dealers. BTW initial news stated the Maine shooter was found with two gunshot wounds, then the story changed, what’s up with that?

  5. He’s right! I’ve said for years that guns don’t kill people, people kill people. Guns are inanimate objects. They don’t move or think on their own. If someone doesn’t pick up, cock, aim then pull the trigger a gun does nothing except lay there. It takes a PERSON to make a thinking decision to do all those steps before a gun can have a reaction of firing. Therefore Guns don’t Kill People, People who decide to pick up, cock,aim and shoot a gun kill people by intent or accident.

  6. When they isolate “gun” crime you know they’re just being disingenuous assholes and should be ignored.

    • It very much is an echo chamber largely between the regulars that comment. I do think more people are reading this site though (and the comments) in recent years. From politicians to the general population, places like this can be something of an indicator for the pulse of the nation where this topic is concerned.

    • I often visit thetruthaboutquilting.com and troll posts about long arm machines and geometric square patters as echo chamber posts.

      Because why should a blog stick to a theme? They should be posting things I want to read not things that stick to the scope of the blog, damnit.

  9. Gun-Free Japan has an Intentional Death Rate (Homicides + Suicides) that is 32% higher than the USA’s. Guns don’t really matter, other means will be used if they are unavailable. Coconuts will always find a way.

    • True if not guns then what, forks, knives, sharpened spoons, automobiles, screwdrivers, hammers, picks, pickaxes, hands. The list goes on and on, if someone wants to kill someone or thing they will find a way.

      • The late Col Jeff Cooper commented in 1958, “Killing is a matter of will, not means. You cannot control the intent by passing laws about the means.”

  10. Has anyone here ever heard of a gun of any caliber kill someone? Last I heard a gun is an inanimate object incapable of any action on its own.

  12. “Gun crime is uniquely high in the United States because ….

    …. democrats have spend decades creating a liberal agenda environment for criminals that have criminality in their hearts and minds.

    In other countries, they put them in prison or remove them from society (committed to institutions) or simply don’t acknowledge it ‘officially’ (e.g. Japan for murders and suicides, the U.K. for sex worker murders and suicides) and it doesn’t appear in ‘stats’ – its not because they have a gun ban, heck, their criminals just use some other ‘thing’ if they can’t get a gun and they still end up with harm and death in their countries. Here in the U.S. the democrat left wing policy’s embolden and facilitate them and creates them, and heck even when they have them in custody, and even for violent mental illness (e.g. Maine recently), they are let out to roam in society among their prey.

    Out of ALL the violent crime in the U.S. a gun is used less than 1% of the time in a violent crime. Yep, there is other violent crime other than ‘gun crime’ and those criminals simply use something else. The gun-control industry wants you to believe that ‘gun crime’ violence is the only thing that matters… heck, for example: In 2022 just for violent rapes alone, nationwide there were over 133,000 victims and a gun was used by the perpetrator in ~200 of those (0.1%)… and in 2022 for every violent armed robbery where the criminal was armed with a gun there were ~23 violent armed robberies using a knife or other implement and no gun was present.

    No, gun crime is not actually uniquely high in the United States – incidents of criminals facilitated and emboldened and created by left wing liberal democrat ‘progressive’ policy’s is uniquely high in the United States.

    • correction for: ~23

      That should have been ~230

      (or in other words only 0.4 % of armed robberies in 2022 a gun was used by the criminal).

    • Your entire post is irrelevant. Simply because gun crime does not exist. Violent crime committed by people using guns does. Just like knives don’t commit crime, forks don’t make you fat and pencils/keyboards don’t cause spelling errors.

  13. One of the clearer distinctions between our two opposing ideologies I’ve seen in a while.

    Not to be set aside.

    • I heard that they’re filming a new Muppet movie, so I guess she has another previous engagement to attend to.

      • So we’ve gone through Raggedy Ann, to Fozzie Bear, and now to Pinocchio on a stick…. totally appropriate for this Cartoon Administration.

  17. It’s not the Heart either, it’s the MIND or lack thereof. I understand the Heart statement, but the heart does not process information and thoughts. Why Do some people feel it is OKAY to take the lives of others? They do it with vehicles, knives, fists, bats, drugs, etc…. We couldn’t stop the drug infestation (too much money involved), so now we ae legalizing them, and providing places to do them, as well as providing overdose saving products. Maybe drug companies need to be banned?

    • We definitely have a big pharma problem. Sometime in the ’60s they realized that cures were not profitable and moved to a “prolongs life as long as you continue taking it” or “provides symptomatic relief as long as you keep taking it” along with, “the more addictive the better and who cares if it causes suicidal thoughts, we can make billions.” Lately I’ve been seeing ads that say if this drug causes side effects that you don’t like, “here, take this drug too” thus doubling their profits.

      I am very concerned for the future of the country as more of our youth fall into the lie of “better living through chemicals.”

      • Before theBiden I was clean, now I cant wash the vicodin down with the whiskey fast enough.
        Some people ask me why and I say it’s the only way.

  18. The WH is outraged.
    And no one cares the WH is outraged. They seemed to be outraged about something all the time.
    It is quite tiresome.

  19. Mike may look like a mild mannered man wearing glasses but the man is no lightweight. His late father was a firefighter who was critically burned after his department responded to an industrial fire. In other words Mike has seen and dealt dealt with the worst of injuries a person can endure. Mike is not a man who takes injury and death with a grain of salt like some sheltered spoon fed ivory tower democRat. Frankly…Johnson, Kennedy and Scalise are Three Musketeers from Louisiana.

  20. He said like it should be, people kill people and evil is more abundant. People need Jesus Christ! The president’s son lied and obtained a firearm on the ATF form let him answer for that . Fentanyl is the epidemic killing more everyday than anything and they don’t address it because of the open border letting it across

    • Also all the prescription meds and side effects, may cause suicidal tendencies and also homicidal. Wake up America!

    • I’m letting Hunter slide on the lying thing.
      Filling out a form to access permission from Our giverment to exercise a constitutional right is a violation of itself.

      • Agree in part but others have been prosecuted and imprisoned for it so I want to see equal justice. It’s not going to happen because the system if f**ked but it is supposed to.

  21. “Gun crime is uniquely high in the United States”

    Depends on whether you consider governments slaughtering the dissenters in their disarmed populace a “crime.”

    • A ‘phobia’ is an irrational fear of something.

      Islam is by it’s OWN DEFINITION / nature violent.

      It is not a ‘phobia’ to fear something that wants you DEAD just because you are BREATHING and refuse to ally yourself with EVIL.

  23. I’m 78 years old and in the last stage of prostate cancer. If guns, not people, murder people, the White House needs to explain why a gun, by itself, won’t murder me but an unarmed madman will.

  24. What does every violent crime have in common? A human committing the act. Unless and until the human factor is dealt with, nothing will change. Should I be pushed to the point of violent response to some action against me, I would not need a firearm to be potentially dangerous. Humans have and still do use other weapons to injure or kill.

  26. Hey moron, instead of more laws how about we enforce the ones we already have? Maine has yellow flag laws and this guy was involuntarily committed to a psych ward for 2 weeks only a couple months ago. Why weren’t his guns confiscated by order of that law? Oh, because you dem nut jobs want these killings to continue as fodder to get your way of total gun confiscation. Why don’t we hold accountable the person who ultimately failed to enforce the yellow flag law in place and sentence him to death row for his failure to protect the citizens? Oh, then someone is held accountable and we can’t have that, can we? These people who die are only pawns in your plans. You truly are evil people. You want to rid high capacity mags. So you’re saying a mag that only holds 10 rounds and used in a firearm by a psychopath to “only” kill 10 people is ok?? What about a single shot weapon that only kills 1 person? You’re saying that’s OK?? Look how many people are killed by drunk drivers every year. Why don’t we ban vehicles? Ban alcohol? Ban sober drivers so they can’t get killed by drunk drivers? You people are ignorant.

    • “Slippery slope” applies. If convicted every shrink will be invoking red/yellow flag laws even for insomnia or mild depression out of fear of being prosecuted should the patient go off the deep end.

  29. The designed purpose of a vehicle is for transportation. The gun is designed to kill. Simple as that. Battlefield, mass shootings, gang shootings, whatever.. it’s designed to kill. An AR-15 is designed after the military rifles used by our military in the battlefield in wars. In the hands of a civilian mass shooter, it will quickly kill children like at Sandy Hook and Parkland and people enjoying a concert like in Vegas where people will have no chance, especially if the shooter has high capacity magazines too and can shoot as fast as his finger wiggles without reloading.

    Semi automatic firearms need to be banned, full stop.

    • Guns are designed to do many things. NOT just one. Just like vehicles. No vehicle ever built was designed to be all things to all people. Although many have tried.

      • The design purpose of a knife is to cut, full stop. It is the users ‘free will’ that determines if it cuts the dinner you are preparing, the boxes you are opening, or the rival gang member you are attempting to perforate.

        Your hyperbolic, emotionally charged, and logically invalid arguement notwithstanding, guns are a tool, like any tool, that can be used for good or bad.

        Would you also call to abolish free speach for all, because a few called out for an incitement to violence?

        Yes? No?

        Either way, what a sophomoric arguement to attempt to make to deny the civil rights of the citizenry at large because a few, with evil intent, violated natural law.

    • Your argument is specious at best. It is about how a thing CAN be used, not what it was designed to do. The AR 15 was not designed to kill as many people as possible as fast as possible, it was designed to be a civilian self defense weapon. Roughly 30 million Americans use it for that purpose and/or for hunting, and/or for sport shooting, and/or for any other lawful purpose. They should not be banned because they are abused by a tiny portion of the owner population. Full stop!

      • Seven former pests ( wild hogs ) could,if possible, attest to the hunting use of an AR 15. No humans were injured in this endevour.

    • actually the 556 round was made more to wound…so that it would take 2 other enemy soldiers to carry the wounded one off the battlefield thereby eliminating 3 soldiers off the battlefield…or some such thing.stop with the full stop crap…sounds like a commiefornia governor in china…

      • WTF?! Actually the 5.56×45 round was designed as a varmint hunting round, and it is VERY effective at that. I’ve seen it do things indescribable for the sake of decency on this platform. As developed by Eugene Stoner the 55 grain bullet is stunningly effective on the human body, as any high-powered round is. Dunno where that “made to wound” trope came from, but it’s BS that’s been around for years. When the bullet strikes, it proceeds to tumble, multiplying it’s effectiveness far beyond it’s diminutive size… The more recent 62 grain “green tip” ammo is designed for armor piercing and tends to drill holes thru things rather than tumble, hence less effective on flesh, and less likely to be deflected by barriers. Personally I’d rather not be hit by either version, just sayin…

        • As compared to the 308 from the m14 that the m16 replaced it’s way less powerful.Know someone hit with .223 in back and survived and is still okay except for the scar…308 and I doubt he would’ve lived, but yeah, still wouldn’t want to get shot with any round.

    • I have guns that were designed to make holes in paper, nothing more.
      I have guns designed to stop a physical threat,not necessarily to kill. If the threat dies thats just a side effect. It’s ok. Ask big pharma about it.

      • RE: d. hoggwash…”The designed purpose of a vehicle is for transportation.”

        The designed purpose of the internet was for business and your hypothesis killed that. Proves product design flies out the window when products are misused by criminals and morons like you.
        Perhaps firearms came to be because people were tired of getting their heads and limbs chopped off with axes and swords…Cut the hoggwash and grow up.

    • Gasoline is designed to be burned in engines to generate motive power.

      It can be (and has been,) used DIRECTLY to kill people by starting fires and in FA explosions.

      BAN GASOLINE!!

      Fully automatic printing systems were not around in the 1700s.

      They need to be banned.

      Full stop.

    • Guns save many more lives than they take, most often without a shot fired. But, then HoggWash, you aren’t interested in the full story. The absence of guns accounted for Jews being slaughtered in WWII, in Russia, China, Cuba, African countries, and unarmed Jews/Americans et el recently in Israel……fish in a barrel….thanks to restricted gun availability in Israel, and in two Maine locations as unarmed citizens….in venues where guns are banned. How’d that “No Guns Allowed” in Maine work out for those law abiding citizens???
      The late Col Jeff Cooper commented in 1958, “Killing is a matter of will, not means. You cannot control the intent by passing laws about the means.”
      Politicians and their Useful Idiots, aka HoggWash, with laws never stop bad guys with guns, evil intent.
      They only control the good guys….make ’em fish in a barrel, which is their true agenda.

    • Hogg, On the contrary. A gun is designed for SELF DEFENSE. If you are STUPID enough to attack someone who is armed then you get what your hand calls for.
      It is also designed for hunting wild game. Yep, putting food on the table. Are you against that as well?

    • Way down this country road in a holler
      Where they make that moonshine still
      There’s an old man on a porch on a shack
      And the shack is where he lives
      Round the town they call him Pa
      Its Pa from on the hill
      And every time Pa does slay a hog
      You can hear that Hoggy SQUEALl.

    • Mr. Hogg,
      The design purpose is send a projectile, in a given direction at a given distance and impact with an object that matches the point of aim.
      That object could be a paper target as in recreational target shooting.
      That object could be an animal as in hunting.
      That object could be another human being in self-defense or even murder.
      Now, what you should be concentrating on is the world is on the brink of WWIII. The US military is currently experiencing a shortage of military aged men. The US military is currently experiencing a shortage of fit military aged men. There is talk of reinstating the draft. What you may want to do is get yourself to the range and practice marksmanship. As you appear to be a fit military aged male. That rifle just might save your life on the battle field.

    • You have a right to your opinion David. Murder is an absolute abhorrent and ugly human trait, we can agree on that. Over 100 million documented murders by Communist/Marxist regimes hangs over your arguments every single time, man. I’m pretty sure you aren’t moving the needle in this particular group of posters. Pretty sure every single one of us would rather take our chances by keeping this Democratic Republic experiment moving forward, than face the alternative. Which has shown itself to fail over and over again and again. If this country and its ideals/systems are so irredeemably broken, why has everyone in the world searching for a better life coming here? What is your alternative? Do you have a better design? Please enlighten all of us backwards uneducated rednecks.

  31. We have a morality problem in this country that the Libertarians liberals and the left, don’t want to talk about.
    And unfortunately the conservatives have given up on talking about.

    And morality has almost nothing to do with sex. Prop 47 in California is a great example.

  32. Another “man after my own heart” (Trump was the first)… who says it like it is… There may be hope after all.

  34. @David Dogg – The designed purpose of a vehicle is for transportation. The gun is designed to kill.”

    Transport is necessary. So is killing.

    Tools of transport can be used in an illegal manner. So can tools of killing.

    Implying that killing and killing tools are inherently and entirely immoral and criminal is subversive bullshit aimed at showing confusion and eliminating the individual rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.

    • The late Col Jeff Cooper commented in 1958, “Killing is a matter of will, not means. You cannot control the intent by passing laws about the means.”

      However, the guise of preventing dead bodies in the streets is a cover/justification for the Useful Idiots to support disarming the populace of We The Little Peeps in order to protect the tyrannical elites’ asses for their power/control/wealth grab.

  35. “Implying that killing and killing tools are inherently and entirely immoral and criminal is subversive bullshit aimed at showing sowing confusion and eliminating the individual rights[…]”

    Thanks be to Fate that my cars and guns don’t have “auto-correct”. I’d be long gone for sure.

  36. I caught my Legos building arms and legs for one of my gunms.
    We got in a big fight and my gunm said, ” Let go of my leggo.” Hah gunm see if you can fire through all that syrup and butter.

  37. A butt ugly little black dyke speaking for a mashpotato head faux POTUS – what could be less relevant?

  38. So lets see what a government does to an unarmed population in the United States, to do so we just need to look back in history when a military force was used against unarmed miners on strike, spurred on by money. Make no mistake, this is something the anti-gun organizations have bought up, and even Biden hinted at, and would love to do right now and they would gladly see you die – the use of military force against American citizens who are gun owners to confiscate their firearms and remove their 2A rights at gun point and kill some is something they would love to do and make no mistake they have tried to figure out a way to do it so the optics aren’t so bad. Already Biden’s weaponized ATF has held a kid at gun point threatening to shoot them to force the parent to surrender their FFL and thus 2A rights voluntarily, don’t think Biden and the anti-gun organizations would not want you dead too.. Anyway, a peek at history.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkL1M41GU3Y

  39. Who’s talking about “Echo Chambers”? I can absolutely guarantee that every single “echo chamber” commenter in this thread knows exactly what the MSM is reporting @ all times. Reading articles like this are just the next logical step in the method of critical thinking. The occasional intelligent leftist (there are many) that happens to follow their gut and end up @ a website like this knows all this. That is why the best they can do to counter is either censor or insult people. Weak. I suggest you do some soul searching and get right w/ God.

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