rs_560x415-150618093334-1024.President-Obama-Nation-Address-Charleston-Shooting.jl.061815

This past Black Friday saw a record number of NICS checks — the most gun sales in a single day. Ever. Over the last week the supply of modern firearms has been drained from the wholesale distribution channels United States. People are buying guns like it’s going out of style. If you ask the White House, the fact that record numbers of Americans are exercising their Constitutional right to own a gun is a “tragedy” and they have absolutely no idea why it’s happening. It’s a classic Democrat response — they don’t understand anything about the firearms they demonize and they can’t comprehend the gun owner mentality. It gets worse . . .

From the Washington Times:

President Obama’s spokesman said Thursday that the record number of Americans seeking to buy guns in recent weeks is “a tragedy” that the White House is at a loss to explain.

“The more that we see this kind of violence on our streets, the more people go out and buy guns,” said White House press secretary Josh Earnest. “That is both ironic and tragic.”

The FBI conducted 185,345 firearms background checks on Black Friday, the most ever during a single day. The record number of gun sales came two weeks after the Islamic State’s terrorist attacks in Paris, but before the terrorist massacre in San Bernardino, California.

Asked why he thinks so many Americans are buying guns, Mr. Earnest replied, “I don’t know, I really don’t.”

“In some cases these are individuals who believe that they need to buy a gun so that they can better protect themselves,” he said. “In some cases because it’s Black Friday, they probably are going and purchasing a gift for a friend or a loved one who is a gun enthusiast. I’m just pointing out that there are already an astonishing number of guns on the streets of America and far too many innocent Americans who are being killed by them.”

I will note that despite the record numbers of guns being sold, the crime rate in the United States continues to drop. The White House is insinuating that these gun purchases will only fuel the “epidemic of gun violence,” but there is no evidence to support their claim. Zero. In fact, it seems the more guns are purchased the more the crime rate drops.

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130 COMMENTS

  2. Of course, that should be a clue to them how wrong they are…but they’ll just double down because, you know “smartest” person and everything.

    At least, in their own minds, not in the Real World.

    {SMH}

    Gun grabbers gotta grab….all about controlling those that oppose them.

    • Well there’s smart, and there’s intelligent.

      I also know some very smart people who make poor decisions.

      Obama is what I would call educated, but an idiot. He’s booksmart. It’s like he read the books, and passed the tests, but didn’t actually understand what was in the books. As if the intent of the knowledge was lost on him. I see it in IT all the time. People who went to school to learn how to work on computers, and never learned the basics of real world troubleshooting.

      • Until I see a college transcript I consider him the dumbest president in history. He wouldn’t hide it if it wasn’t bad. Or maybe nonexistant in Columbia’s case.

      • I think you guys are missing something. What these jackholes say and what they know are two different things.

        Do you really think that they’d say “Well yes, we do know why so many firearms were purchased. It’s because people want to protect themselves and their families from these islamic terrorists. They want to have the best chance they can of not becoming these islamic terrorists next victims. We obviously can’t stop them, no one can. We hate to admit this but it’s the truth. People are unpredictable and nobody really knows what lies in another man or woman’s heart and mind. Add to this our constant push to take away the people’s main means of defense and constitutional rights every time some terrorist or mentally disturbed individual decides to hurt people and you get record breaking firearm sales”.

        These are not stupid or ignorant people. They know exactly what they are saying as well as all the pertinent information and statistics that go along with it. Underestimating them is a grave mistake, one I won’t make personally. Oh and by the way, I know the I in islamic is supposed to capitalized. I refuse to acknowledge islamic terrorism as a faith or religion. That would be like acknowledging kkk as a part of Christianity. I’m an atheist but I still recognize others right to have a religion even if I don’t have a religion myself.

    • “Of course, that should be a clue to them how wrong they are…but they’ll just double down”

      There’s a psychological term that describes people like this. They constitute a whole demographic made up of people from often multi-generational families who lack even a basic understanding of how things work or how to fix things. Although they pretend to speak authoritatively they couldn’t begin to even describe how a firearm works, or exactly what makes a simi-auto different from a full-auto. The fact that a 10-22’s simi-auto mechanism is little different from a AR “assault weapon” simi-auto mechanism is lost on them because the color and shape of the AR looks so threatening that it must be so. They are victims of a condition psychology calls “secondary ignorance”. They don’t know that they don’t know.

      • Well, there’s two things going on at once here.

        First, they’re all Social Justice Warriors, and SJWs always double down.
        Second, it’s the Dunning-Kruger effect. The incompetent lack the ability to realize what they do not know.

      • He is not an idiot. Obama’s actions on guns, ISIS, climate, defense, etc. is all about his anti-America ideology. Everyone says he “hasn’t a clue”. Wrong. He knows exactly what he is doing.

        • I had this discussion with a friend last night, he thinks they are all just incompetent. The most dangerous thing you can do is underestimate these people. Everything they do is very deliberate and well thought out, if it doesn’t work out they simply have more information and ideas for their next attempt. Gradualism is their tool of enslavement.

        • +10,000

          They want all these “programs” and “ideas” and “polices” to fail. That’s the perfect excuse to move to the next level of tyrannical oppression.

          They are in it for the long haul…and if that turns about to be multi-generational, so be it. We must be very careful about ONLY seeing the snapshot of actions right before us right now.

        • O’s pulled too many legitimate boners to not qualify as one of our least talented presidents. Stuff where he clearly got lied to by his underlings, or jumped the gun, or got his bluff called, or was just plain wrong, and put himself at a disadvantage. But just as the saying says “just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you,” “just because the man’s incompetent doesn’t mean he doesn’t have plans.” More and more, I think he and Hillary are two peas in a pod (they come from the same Chicago gutter, after all). Neither are particularly clever, neither are very slick in the face of any adversity whatsoever, neither ‘get away’ with any of their cons; they just don’t get punished for their crimes & failures by way of convenient circumstance. Obama happens to be the first black president, so he’ll never be impeached or indicted. Hillary is treated similarly with kid gloves, which is why she wasn’t disbarred or jailed in the sixties for unethically trumping evidence on Nixon.

        • Personally, I think it’s a combination of active malfeasance and incompetence. The classic example I can think of is when Obama and company were still flying under the gun control radar, the Fast and Furious fiasco.

          If you look at the time line of things, right about the time F&F was kicking off, the Obama White House started talking about how American guns were fueling Mexican drug cartel violence. Never mind that most American sourced cartel guns were gotten from the Mexican police and military. The narrative was supposed to be that American “assault weapons” were crossing the border by the truckload and were the primary cause of Mexican “gun violence”. F&F would provide proof, and with a long face and grim tones, a president who hadn’t yet blown his political capital on Obamacare would call for new assault weapon bans.

          Except for the small problem that Fast and Furious was being implemented by a mostly autonomous federal agency with a penchant for promoting career screw ups who couldn’t find their own genitalia with both hands in a dark room, it might have worked. But since it was being implemented by the Keystone Kop BATFE, it went all pear shaped in a hurry. Federal agents were killed with American guns, and gun shop owners ordered to participate in the scheme, who trusted the ATF about as much as a rabid wolverine in a rickety cage, had kept detailed records ensuring there was a paper trail showing what the Feds had been up to. The Obama administration realized what a mess they had on their hands and shut F&F down.

          The White House and the press stopped talking about the iron pipeline into Mexico and went silent running on gun control until Sandy Hook.

          Fast and Furious is a perfect illustration that this administration HAS neferious plans. They ARE out to get you, or at least your guns. They’re just almost tragically incompetent at just about anything the attempt to do.

          And thank goodness for that.

        • Boxilar, you nailed it.
          F&F was doing exactly what it was designed to do — manufacture evidence to support the claim “90% of the guns used by the Mexican cartels are from the USA because of our lax gun laws”. There was no possible way those guns could be “tracked” to higher-ups in gun-running or drug cartels. They were only meant to be “traced” to the FFLs who were told by the BATFE to make the sales..
          They pass off F&F as a “well-intentioned plan that failed”. That’s their cover story. It will be the same if they ever have their backs to the wall on the Gun Free School Zone Act. “Good intentions” backfired, and created a free-fire killing zone so the gun -grabbers could dance on the graves of the children they sacrificed to advance their agenda. But of course they meant well.

  4. President Sparklefarts and his cabal of clueless arrogant insiders will never understand anything that occurs outside the land of Unicorns.

    Hence, the rise of ISIS, the 50 million on food stamps, the 11 million who have dropped out of the work force and the continuing sluggish economy.

    He still believes in his magnificence and can’t understand why “just everybody!” shouldn’t recognize him as the “one”.

    Thirteen months and eight days…………………

  5. I wonder how much the NRA got on the long weekend from the Add a Buck feature some sites have, or from their membership discounts. Plus state groups.

    Keep pushing Dems, you’re feeding your own destruction.

    • I put in my 2 cents. The least I could do. Well, technically twice the least I could do.

  6. ” they probably are going and purchasing a gift for a friend or a loved one who is a gun enthusiast.”
    How come I don’t have friends or loved ones like that?

    • Because your friends are smart enough to not want to be made an example of for straw purchasing? (I know, I know…)

    • surprised they didn’t have the DOJ release a statement warning people about the criminal penalties for the 4473 form . . . .

    • The perfect gift for someone who already has everything is a consumable. So expect stockings full of ammo this year.

      • Every Christmas I give guy relatives ammo & jerky, for the women ammo & chocolate. Also bake a big batch of Cranberry/Walnut oatmeal cookies. Actually, anytime I visit I show up with baked goods. You want your relatives to say “come back soon” and mean it.

    • His comment about purchasing the gun for someone else or for a gift astounds me. That would make the purchaser a “straw man”. Purchasing a gun for someone else is illegal. They of all people should know that.

      • His comment about purchasing the gun for someone else or for a gift astounds me. That would make the purchaser a “straw man”. Purchasing a gun for someone else is illegal. They of all people should know that.

        Gifts are not straw purchases.

        A straw purchase is a three-party purchase, in which someone other than the eventual owner acts as the go-between, either by taking money from the third party to effect the purchase, or by engaging in quid pro quo for that purchase.

  10. C’mon. He has to know. Nobody is that stupid.

    Since they don’t believe guns can be used for defensive purposes by us mere mortals let’s toss that out.
    He has to understand simple economics, right? Have all the (D)’s go around the talk shows talking about regulating, limiting, licensing, banning Twinkies and watch people horde’em up. Even folks who hate the yellow cake dicks because at some point they’ll be able to flip them for a profit.

    The jerk off is either a lying sack or he’s honestly too dumb to work the fryer at a McDonalds.

    • Gun controllers, heck all the offencerati, act as if the most fundamental right is the right to not be offended. This requires them to tune out all other viewpoints, and they live in bubble chambers. Thus everything different is unrecognizable to them, and BHO is telling the truth when he says he cannot comprehend reality.

    • He’s not that stupid, and neither are the people who work for him. Incompetent, yes. Stupid, no.

      Anyone who believes these people when they say they don’t understand why people are buying guns is a fool. They know exactly why it’s happening, but they can’t say it, because it’ll crumble their house of cards. It’s a much better tactic for them to act bewildered and thus try to paint gun buyers as irrational and paranoid. They shake their heads and try to act like disappointed parents whose kids just can’t get their shit together, and the useful idiots on their side eat it up like candy.

      Really, what’s their alternative? They’re not going to say “Americans are buying guns in record numbers because it’s become increasingly obvious that the government, despite all promises to the contrary, simply can’t (and never could) protect its citizens. Also, we keep threatening to take them away, which drives sales even higher.”

      • Well said stinkeye.

        Also, as pointed out earlier; crime rates decline as gun ownership increases. This is unacceptable to the politoburo, therefore, we must import more criminals.

      • Bingo.

        We underestimate these statist leaders at our peril. They are not idiots, they are evil people with a plan. Kings don’t want armed peasants – their rule could be challenged.

  11. Imagine that…. People realized the government has failed them in terms of domestic safety (at all levels), and are taking responsibility for their own safety. God forbid people take responsibility for themselves.

  12. A bad thing?

    When I am in a gun store I refer to the NICS check coming back positive (for any buyer, not me) as the “Blessed Event” that leads to DiFi shedding another tear.

  13. Like their Hollywood allies, they are out of touch with the general public. Their reality is what they view on film.

  14. The fact that citizens of the United States exercised a Constitutional right is a “tragedy?” Its no wonder his college transcripts are locked up tight. This guy is just a horse’s ass.

  16. The more that we see this kind of violence on our streets, the more people go out and buy guns,” said White House press secretary Josh Earnest. “That is both ironic and tragic.”

    I don’t think those words mean what he thinks they do.

    Seriously, Americans can be slow to respond sometimes, but in general we’re cantankerous. We get around to doing for ourselves when too many promises to do something are broken, and we don’t like being told what to think by people who think they’re better than we are. I think the gun purchases are an example of those two effects coinciding.

    And I think the words he’s looking for are “predictable” and “telling.”

    • The phrase “on the streets” is the one that they use to connect the actions of thugs with the actions responsible people make in response. There is a world of difference between them but they connect them with “on the streets” and the all purpose conflation word “violence.”

    • I too found it ironic that the speaker of the house doesn’t know how to use the word “ironic” appropriately, or he’s stuck in some opposite bizzarro world where the expected outcome of an increase in active shooter scenarios and threats by politicians and major news publications to restrict gun sales even further would result in people turning away from guns rather than try and arm themselves while they still can. I mean it’s not like they had anything to learn from Sandy Hook. Everybody here is hatin on Obama, I say dude is a straight up gangster for the gun industry, he sells more guns than anyone else on the planet.

  18. Obama doesn’t understand why people don’t want to rely on the government to protect them. Look at his track record; Bengazi, Boston, San Bernardino.

  19. Tragic and ironic. Two words that have no relation to legal gun sales in his context but are very fitting for this administration and how they treat the 2A. I am confident those two words apply more often than not regarding any issue these Statists attempt to address.

    Routinely exploiting a crime where a gun is used to further calls for gun control that don’t even have a relation to the crime in question and then claiming to not understand the reason for an increase in firearm sales. That is the true tragedy and irony here.

    When he does try to offer a couple of ideas the constant threats of gun control and many of his kind openly calling for complete confiscation just can’t possibly make the list. Ending his attempt at thought with people being killed by guns rather than with them is just classic. Not a single one of my guns lives on the street either. They all have a nice home.

  20. I want to make a Whitehouse Petition that would call out the current administration to tell the truth. I want the administration to publicly acknowledge the increase in gun sales over the last 7 years. Then I want them to give us the statistics on gun crimes over the last 7 years. I know all of us here on TTAG know he truth, but the nation does not. There is far too much hyperbole being passed off a fact. We have far too many ignorant people trying to convince the gullible public to make decisions based on false information. Statism is a disease truth is the cure.

  21. If Josh Ernest is shocked by this, just wait until his party apparatchiks try to take the guns away by force. His reaction to the resistance will be priceless.

  23. Are people buying out of fear, or because it’s a middle finger. I know most of my purchases lately are middle finger purchases.

  24. The gun surge is a tragedy, in a sense. Just when .22lr was starting to be available again, Sigh. If Hillary gets elected I hope somebody decides the market will be there for a new rimfire plant. Otherwise the more shooters, the better.

  28. You know I would love to see just what the numbers are in innocent lives. Subtract out suicides, and ex violent felons and know gang members and then get back to me with the numbers.

  29. “Ironic and tragic,” or reasonable and prudent. Only Obama would convolute reasonableness and irony.

  31. They’re always shocked by everything…the entire federal governments lives in BHOs mirror funhouse, which has been sanitized of reality for their own comfort and convenience.

  32. Why is the White House complaining? The only reason they know about the increase in sales is because of the background checks. Obama loves background checks! He needs to quit bitchin’.

  33. CHL holders aren’t included in NICS checks, so the WH would be really “shocked” if they knew how many guns were actually sold on Black Friday.

    • They aren’t?? Hym then why do I still have to fill out the 4xxx form and do a check and pay with a check??
      The only thing my CHL does here is let me walk out of the store with my purchase the same day.
      Leave my CHL at home. and I wait a week like everyone else does. Which has happened once. Actually my permit had expired and I forgot to tell the state I had moved…..1 phone call and a credit card I had a new CHL in 3 days. Aint it great in the Gunshine state???

      • Guess I should edit my comment to read “CHL holders in Texas aren’t included in NICS checks”. There’s a box on the 4473 the FFL can tick that renders a NICS check superfluous.

      • Depends on state law, Kentucky allows CCWL holders to bypass the NICS check, still have to fill out the 4473, but no phone call or no computer inquiry. I can walk into a gun store with cash and walk out with a new firearm in 15 minutes, if the clerks aren’t too busy standing around talking to each other.

        I did have one pawn shop that said the ATF would not allow them to bypass the call in check. I haven’t been back to that pawn shop.

        • So that’s at least two states with under-reported gun sales. I’m too lazy to do a state-by-state check, but obviously the WH is looking at a lower figure that is “shocking” them.

      • Arizona is the same, fill out 4473, copy of your CCW, walk out, no call. The aft only finds out if it pulls the 4473 or the business closes.

      • Just wait until they figure out how many 80% are sold and are lovingly turned into something they know nothing about.

  34. Asked why he thinks so many Americans are buying guns, Mr. Earnest replied, “I don’t know, I really don’t.”
    Or asked about any other topic, the answer is the same.

  35. lol I should point out that according to the “40 percent” lie the number actually bought was a little over 300k!

  38. I am buying one in a few days. I’m currently the top bidder in an auction at gunbroker.com. This will be my first 1911 style handgun.

    The gun grabbers did not influence my decision to buy, but they (and current events) didn’t hinder that decision either.

  39. I wonder if Obama actually has a brain, or if his pathetic, albeit slickly executed, spasms are just finely tuned reflexes. Talk about dotting the Is in imbecile, idiot, Incompetent and I just don’t have a clue.

  40. “Guns on the street” implies black-market illegal guns used/sold by criminals.

    Is the White House passively-aggressively implying that every law-abiding person who goes through background check and purchases a gun is a criminal? – That a large percentage of legally owned and used guns WILL end up in the criminal circuit? They certainly are trying to connect the two… What a bunch of tossers! They really do see the gun-owning public as the enemy.

  41. “I’m just pointing out that there are already an astonishing number of guns on the streets of America and far too many innocent Americans who are being killed by them.”
    –Josh Earnest, Press Secretary to the President

    He’s half right you know.
    There are an astonishing number of guns “on the streets” — or in private hands actually — and estimate range from 200 million to 320 million. As a rule of thumb for the last 45 years or so we’ve typically said one gun per person in the U.S. By my estimates the rate of gun sales since 2008 has outpaced the birth rate. By about 20%. The fact that many guns are in private hands makes me sleep soundly at night. That’s because if you look at it statistically the percentage of firearms misused is somewhere below about 0.03%. Or 99.97% are used appropriately.

    It’s not that “too many innocent” people are being killed. Let’s get serious. Certainly the death of any innocent is tragic. But in a country of over 320 million people more innocents die from drowning, fires or accidental poisoning that by firearms. Most murders are committed by people with criminal histories who shouldn’t have a gun in the first place. And too many of those same criminals should not have been released from prison to begin with.

  42. Every time one of these shootings occurs, you go before millions and, in stead of blaming the shooter, you place the blame on an inanimate object and further demonize that object. Then hint around the edges of a ban or making more it much more difficult to obtain that object, An object that is the most effective for people to use to defend themselves and their families. Well, facing that there is something they want or feel they need that the government announces they will soon be denied access to, of course people are going to go out and buy it before they can’t any longer. Why Obama is history’s best gun sales generator. They don’t get this?

  44. “White House Shocked By Gun Sales Surge”

    Leftists never have a clue what their mo ronic actions cause.

    • That is exactly right. The progressive mindset cannot or will not allow its adherents to connect cause with effect.

  45. If they’re shocked then it should be a clear indication to them that they’re doing it wrong- governing i mean- and the political position on the mater. Tone deaf to the will of the people they represent. But a lot of them just don’t give a hoot, their is an agenda to disarm the people and they’ve been caught red-handed. But they just change to terminology and use creative naming of proposed legislation. Like “common sense gun safety so our children can’t get slaughtered act”

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