AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

Rep. Ilhan Omar is a special sort of Democrat. One of the new representatives elected during the midterms by the far Left, she’s clearly someone who hates America and would as soon see us under the kind of regime that would stone her to death for holding office.

No, I don’t expect consistency from rabid progressives.

However, I tend not to remark on Omar’s comments because her insane ramblings often don’t delve enough into the Second Amendment for me to have cause to do so. The thing is, though, she’s pretty dumb on the topic.

For example, she thinks 500 people a day are shot and killed here in the United States.

In a tweet backing Rep. Lucy McBath’s anti-gun push, she sent out this tweet.

Supporting my colleagues’ call on Senate Majority Leader to vote on H.R. 8, 1112 & 1158.
Gun violence is an epidemic.
Every day on average 500 people die from gun violence. How many more lives will we let gun violence claim?
Retweeting: https://t.co/ty5taOLeOC

— Rep. Ilhan Omar (@Ilhan) June 5, 2019

See? 500 people.

Wow.

That’s 182,000 people every year, according to Omar.

And progressives wonder why folks like me can’t take them seriously.

The claim was so blatantly wrong that even Politifact had to rate it as false.

When we last examined the numbers, earlier this year, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported there had been 39,773 deaths related to firearms in 2017. 2017 is still the most recent year for which annual statistics from the CDC are available.

The figure counts deaths resulting from suicides (60 percent of the total), homicides, unintentional and undetermined deaths, as well as those from law enforcement. And it was the highest tally in at least 40 years.

Meanwhile, the average over five years — 2013 through 2017  — is slightly lower, according to Brady, the nonprofit formerly known as the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

Either way, the total gun deaths per day is far fewer than the 500 Omar claims:

Total gun-related deaths, 2017: 39,773. Average per day: 109.

Average annual gun-related deaths, 2013-2017: 36,383. Average per day: 100.

In other words, it’s a slam dunk.

But oh no, Omar’s office had the cajones to defend the claim.

Omar’s spokesman, Jeremy Slevin, defended Omar’s use of the 500 figure. But he acknowledged to us that Omar’s tweet was in the context of domestic legislation and that the reference to 500 could have been more precise.

What?

Honestly, that defense makes less sense than what we normally hear from Omar and her camp. The tweet was “in the context of domestic legislation?” How does that support such a blatantly false claim? And saying the number could have been more precise? Really?

She claimed the number was five times higher than it was. Saying she could have been more precise would imply that the number was at least close.

The problem with Omar and officials like her isn’t that they get stuff wrong. Everyone does, especially when they’re new to their job. It’s that they can’t admit they were wrong.

Hell, had her office replied, “We apologize, we were looking at numbers for a completely different subject, and wires got crossed,” then went on to defend the proposed legislation using the correct numbers, it would have been one thing.

Instead, they doubled down on stupidity by defending blatantly false numbers.

Then again, it makes sense. Their supporters won’t question the numbers. They’ll use them, and the uninformed will believe them and argue that we need gun control to curb the obvious threat.

Once people drink the Kool-Aid, it’s hard to turn them around. Perhaps Omar knows this and doesn’t care that she got it wrong.

Or, perhaps, she’s as stupid as we’ve thought.

I know which way I’m leaning.