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As a staple of the liberal fact-checking industry, PolitiFact likes to instruct journalists on how to cover certain issues. Apparently, it is too much to ask that the site fact-check its guidance before releasing it.
With red flag laws dominating the current gun control debate, the Poynter Institute for Media Studies decided to offer some “tips for journalists” about covering the laws. The Poynter Institute owns PolitiFact, so PolitiFact promoted the guidance, which claimed it is “not accurate” that the laws lack due process and that it is a “false claim” that the laws allow people with a grudge to have someone’s guns removed from them using the law.
To declare these concerns as “misinformation” so boldly, you would think that the major fact-checking operation would have done its research. You would be wrong. Concerns over the due process protections in red flag laws have been raised by none other than the American Civil Liberties Union, the liberal advocacy group that has abandoned many of its civil rights positions to become an arm of the Democratic Party. The ACLU raised concerns about due process protections and politically motivated orders in Rhode Island’s red flag bill in 2018 and opposed California’s version of the law, which, according to the group, “poses a significant threat to civil liberties.”
According to the written congressional testimony of the Cato Institute’s David Kopel, red flag laws have indeed been used in questionable circumstances, including that of a 57-year-old woman who struck her husband in the leg and poured soda on him “after discovering … a partially nude photo” a woman had sent to him. In Colorado, a woman attempted to have a police officer’s firearms confiscated because he killed her son in an apparent “suicide by cop” situation. She was convicted of perjury for lying about having a personal connection with the officer so she could file a red flag petition against him.
According to Kopel, an analysis of Connecticut’s red flag law found that 32% of confiscation orders are overturned. This is likely an underestimate, and “error rates for newer laws” being pushed by gun control groups “are likely to be even higher,” given that they are less narrowly tailored than the Connecticut law that was analyzed.
“Misinformation” has become the word liberals use when they want to dismiss any and all debate. The fact-checking industry is already nothing more than a weapon to be used by liberals against people they disagree with, and PolitiFact is one of the worst offenders. Next time, the outfit should have someone fact-check its work.
