By Matt Rooney
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Serious debates demand a common set of facts, Save Jerseyans, even if the debate’s participants walk away from those facts with different conclusions.
Phil Murphy isn’t a serious person. He doesn’t want a serious debate.
He’s trying to cut through the noise and win a primary by saying and sounding as radical as he can.
So, unsurprisingly, our Democrat Governor proved himself to be an embarrassment again on Thursday in the wake of the Parkland, Florida school shooting by repeating a false claim that was seemingly EVERYWHERE on social media over the past 24 hours:
EIGHTEEN school shootings in a month and a half is absolutely outrageous and appalling. We owe it to our children to fight the gun lobby and pass common sense gun safety legislation both in Congress and here in N.J.
Inaction is not an option. #Parkland
— Governor Phil Murphy (@GovMurphy) February 14, 2018
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The “eighteen” figure isn’t accurate. Not even close.
It all started when the radical anti-Second Amendment group “Everytown for Gun Safety” tweeted the bogus stat and high profile politicians – including Bernie Sanders and Phil Murphy – either retweeted the original tweet or parroted the statistic. And it is bogus.
As The Washington Post explained, “[f]ive of Everytown’s 18 school shootings listed for 2018 happened during school hours and resulted in any physical injury. Three others appeared to be intentional shootings but did not hurt anyone. Two more involved guns — one carried by a school police officer and the other by a licensed peace officer who ran a college club — that were unintentionally fired and, again, led to no injuries. At least seven of Everytown’s 18 shootings took place outside normal school hours.”
Click here to read the full fact check. It’s worth it. Everytown actually removed a suicide from its website’s list after WashPo dropped their fact correction. You can’t make this stuff up…
One mass shooting is one too many, but if we’re going to address the things which we, as humans, can actually control?
Then frauds like Phil Murphy who retweet or recycle inflammatory stats without fact-checking them can’t be a part of the discussion.
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