ICYMI: Trump called for a moment of silence for the victims and read out each of their names, before accusing the left, including Biden, of wanting to take away gun rights. Then, there’s the man who might challenge him for the presidency in 2024: former president DONALD TRUMP, who doubled down on gun rights at the NRA’s meeting Friday - at a politically precarious moment that gun rights supporters won’t forget. This follows Biden’s meeting with the next of kin to those who were murdered in the Buffalo shooting earlier this month. That’s just one example of the work we’re doing to create safer connections.Ī TALE OF TWO PRESIDENTS - President JOE BIDEN and the first lady are traveling to Uvalde, Texas, on Sunday to meet with the grieving families of the victims. That’s nearly 60 times the population of Washington, D.C. Over 40 million people use Facebook Privacy Checkup each month. So too has the prevalence of QAnon in some GOP circles.įacebook is taking action to keep its platform safe But in recent years, the explosion of conspiracy theories on the right have changed that expectation. There was a time when comments like this would have been considered rare - and completely unacceptable by people in both parties.
Full story here, and NYT’s Glenn Thrush has a similar takeaway in his own story about the conference “It’s straight out of a playbook,” another told Siders. “They’ll use anything to make us look bad.”
“This is all propaganda,” said ANA CHAMBERS, who attended with her husband, pointing to the TV cameras and protests calling for gun control. “I’m not sure that there are not forces someplace that somehow find troubled people and nurture and develop them and push them for their own agendas.”
“Why did it happen three days ago?” asked JIM HOLLIS, a lifetime NRA benefactor from St. Mental health was the real problem, etc.īut at the annual NRA conference in Houston, a new defense emerged - one rooted in conspiracy theory: that the left somehow wanted - or even shepherded - Texas’ latest tragedy that left 19 elementary school kids and two adults dead, seeking to push an agenda and try to steal law-abiding citizens’ guns.Īt least that’s the top takeaway from our colleague David Siders, who attended the pro-gun rights confab Friday, interviewed a bunch of attendees and found a surprising amount of pushback not rooted in reality. THE NEW GUN-RIGHTS ADVOCATE DEFENSE: CONSPIRACY THEORIES - We all know the GOP’s well-worn retorts to calls for additional gun restrictions: People kill people, not guns. Donald Trump doubled down on gun rights at the NRA’s meeting Friday - at a politically precarious moment that gun rights supporters won’t forget.