Once upon a time, Wired was a magazine you went to if you wanted to see what the latest technology was. That’s where they focused their attention and plenty of people were willing to buy the magazine to keep up with the latest gadgets.

However, it seems that like so many other publications, Wired has decided to delve into politics. In particular right now, gun politics.

You see, they have a problem with calling the bipartisan gun control law a gun control law.

Titled, “Don’t Call the New Federal Gun Law a Gun Law,” it would seem that they have opinions.

However, there are some laughable assertions made in this piece.

TODAY’S U.S. SENATORS know mass shootings more than they know legislating. The data is undeniable.

The United States is currently on pace for more mass shootings—and the eternal holes they leave in our hearts, homes, and communities—than legislation signed into law in the 117th Congress. We’re also on the sorrow-strewn glide path to having more mass shootings than days in the year.

Today’s lawmakers know guns—whether it’s those used to protect them at the Capitol or the concealed-carry training many have undergone since their former colleague Gabrielle Giffords was shot in 2011. But familiarity with firearms doesn’t mean they know how to write a gun law. Many lawmakers don’t even know how to talk about guns, which is why they largely avoid it.

[Emphasis added]

Really? They know guns?

Explain this, then:

Tons of ignorant things, and that’s far from the totality of stupid things lawmakers have said about guns. To say they know guns is about the dumbest thing I’ve heard a member of the media say in a long, long time, and considering the media, that’s saying something.

And it doesn’t get better from here, either.

Moving on…

That should change soon. This fall, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is slated to release its first report on gun violence since lawmakers removed the 1996 Dickey Amendment, which barred the federal agency from explicitly studying gun violence, like a CDC-funded study published in The New England Journal of Medicine in 1993 entitled “Gun Ownership as a Risk Factor for Homicide in the Home.” In 2019, Congress lifted restrictions on studies like that, and lawmakers have allocated $25 million for research annually since.

The Dickey Amendment only said the CDC couldn’t use taxpayer money to advocate for gun control. It was the CDC who decided that gun research was tantamount to advocating for gun control. In other words, they knew what results they wanted and decided to skip the research to avoid losing funding.

That doesn’t get mentioned, which is also interesting.

It seems that for Wired, the fact that the bill isn’t what the writer preferred negates any gun control aspects to the law. Further, the fact that it includes things like increased funding for mental health further undermines any mention of gun control.

However, let’s remember a few facts.

One is that two-thirds of all gun-related fatalities are suicides. One would imagine that increased funding for mental health efforts would reduce those particular gun-related suicides. If gun control is an answer for suicide, as proponents claim, and such suicides are a gun issue, then wouldn’t this reduce the need for restrictions on gun ownership?

Frankly, the whole Wired piece is long and just as poorly informed. It’s what happens when you walk into a topic from an ideologically-derived point of view and don’t want to look beyond it. It’s also why a technology publication should probably learn to stay in their lane and stick with technology.

Then again, the fact that this piece made it to publication makes me question pretty much everything else in Wired as well.