It seems that anti-gun organizations are huge Shakespeare aficionados. The next play to impose a gun prohibition on the American people is Henry VI, written by the renowned Elizabethan-era playwright.
Shakespeare wrote in the play, “Let’s kill all the lawyers as the first thing we do.”
In a 21st-century twist, two gun control organizations are visiting college campuses to persuade law students to swear never to advocate on behalf of the firearms industry or its interests in court.
Think of it as a long game. Attacking the First Amendment or even the Second Amendment is not enough to achieve gun control. They are currently focusing on Sixth Amendment rights as well. The right to legal representation is guaranteed by that amendment.
In an effort to persuade law students to sign a pledge that they won’t represent the firearm industry or gun owners when it comes to defending and preserving Second Amendment rights, Giffords and March for Our Lives, two anti-gun organizations led by former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords and anti-gun billionaire Michael Bloomberg, respectively, are canvassing campuses. The gun control groups’ pledge attempts to persuade prospective attorneys that the American firearm industry is to blame for violent crime by peddling demonstrably incorrect allegations.
Not the bad guys. not gang warfare or the sale of illegal drugs.
In order to persuade law students to refuse legal services to businesses and individuals that uphold the law, they are blaming the industry for crimes perpetrated by violent offenders and ignoring fundamental legal principles.
David Pucino, Giffords’ deputy chief counsel, makes some dubious assertions to persuade law students to sign the gun control group’s non-binding promise to never defend the legal interests of a business that is protected by the Constitution when they receive their juris doctorate. The first of these false statements is that firearms are the number one killer of American children.
President Joe Biden and anti-gun politicians like to use this fallacious talking point frequently. The issue is that it can be easily proven to be false. The University of Michigan altered data sets to classify people aged 18 and 19 as “children” in order to increase the number of childhood fatalities to exceed those resulting from automobile accidents. This notion is disproved when 18 and 19-year-olds are excluded because they are not considered children but rather adults. This was proved by NSSF.
The gun industry, according to Giffords’ commitment website, is fiercely opposed to “any effort to pass gun safety laws.” Once more, this is clearly untrue. The FIX NICS Act, so-called in honor of the firearms industry’s FixNICS® campaign to have all states enter records that disqualify applicants into the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), was supported by the NSSF.
To make the background check system function as intended, NSSF altered the legislation in 16 states and in Congress. The quick point-of-sale background check system, which would immediately alert a firearm merchant if a buyer is barred from acquiring a firearm, was actually developed with the assistance of NSSF.
Pucino advises law students to stay away from companies that represent the firearms industry because, in his opinion, they “represent some really reprehensible companies that have done some horrible things.”
Never mind that the firearms industry oversees Real Solutions. Safer Communities campaign, which collaborates with over 15,000 law enforcement agencies in all 50 states and five U.S. territories to provide over 40 million free firearm safety kits with locking devices. This campaign includes FixNICS and Project ChildSafe.
Real Solutions also includes the Don’t Lie for the Other Guy and Operation Secure Store partner programs with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to help firearm retailers voluntarily increase security to deter and prevent firearm burglaries and robberies and prevent illegal “straw” purchases of firearms. The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) and the firearms industry collaborated to equip weapon stores and range with kits to promote a “brave conversation” to stop suicide tragedies.
These initiatives are deemed “reprehensible” enough by Giffords and March for Our Lives, who urge that the ATF stop collaborating with the firearms industry on these campaigns that have been shown to save lives. Giffords was one of 43 gun control organizations that urged the ATF to sever its ties to the sector it oversees.
“Stop funding, partnering, or co-branding programs with the National Sports Shooting Foundation via the Department of Justice and other Federal Agencies,” the letter said, according to The Reload. “No longer should the ATF hold private briefing and training sessions at NSSF’s annual SHOT SHOW without making their remarks available to the public online.”
At the University of California – Berkeley School of Law, Cardozo School of Law, City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law, Vanderbilt Law School, and Yale Law School, Giffords and March for Our Lives launched their “pledge” effort. The drive, according to Pucino, is not just for those schools. It is intended to be “broad and national.”
The idea is to embolden aspiring attorneys to exercise their legal rights while simultaneously warning law firms that they risk losing out on top talent if they don’t because recent law school grads will decline to participate in any lawsuits supporting the firearms industry or Second Amendment rights. It’s a difficult task.
“There’s certainly the case that the legal system allows for and encourages for everyone to have representation, of course,” Pucino reluctantly conceded in an interview with The American Independent.
These gun control groups might want to read Shakespeare’s Hamlet and flip forward to the line that reads, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”