EXERCISING THE RIGHT
Clutching Their Pearls?
A comical story out of New Hampshire reminds us how fragile and disingenuous gun-grabbers can sometimes be. Michael Graham, writing at InsideSources.com, explained on March 6 that both the media and prominent Democrats got their facts wrong when they thought New Hampshire legislators were publicly mocking gun-control advocates. The incident unfolded at a hearing on a proposed “red flag” law. In general, so-called red flag laws are laws that allow a citizen to petition a court to remove guns from a gun owner owing to fears that the gun owner may harm himself or others. Second Amendment supporters worry that such laws may be used to slip around due process, with gun owners having their guns taken at the discretion of a judge without being able to defend themselves. The hearing on the law brought both supporters and critics to the statehouse, and one such critic immediately assumed the worst about state legislators wearing pearl necklaces.
Shannon Watts, a member of the group Moms Demand Action, which Graham described as “an anti-gun group backed by liberal billionaire Mike Bloomberg,” posted a series of tweets making the accusation that the pearls were intended as an insult aimed at people concerned with gun violence. As an example, one tweet from Watts read “Male New Hampshire lawmakers on the hearing committee wearing pearls to mock @MomsDemand volunteers and gun safety advocates.” Her messages soon went viral and leftists on social media, as they are known to do, quickly repeated and amplified the messages without checking on the facts. The outcry got to such a fevered pitch that Democratic presidential candidate and U.S. Senator from California Kamala Harris even chimed in and lambasted the Republican politicians. “These moms are fighting to confront gun violence and protect our children. They don’t deserve to be mocked,” Harris wrote to her millions of followers on Twitter.
But the truth would soon come out that the pearls were actually a symbol of a women’s group, which had given them to both male and female legislators. Kimberly Morin is president of the New Hampshire Women’s Defense League, which identifies itself as a pro-Second Amendment organization and is opposed to the proposed red flag law. “We’ve used pearls as a symbol of support for the right to bear arms — particularly the right of women to defend themselves — for years,” Morin told InsideSources. “They’ve became a symbol representing the Women’s Defense League and our fight for women’s rights, for freedom, and against gun control,” she explained.
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