When it comes to guns, that creates a problem because too few of the reporters who might cover gun-related news know a damn thing about, well, any of it. They call up a couple of "experts" they saw quoted in other publications and get a one-sided story, and that's if they're actually trying to be fair.

Many outlets don't even bother, knowing what the narrative they're going to push will be from the moment the story is assigned.

Of course, it doesn't matter which is which, really, especially when they're pushing absolute nonsense. For example, we have a story headlined, "Can Lucy McBath’s New Bill Curb Gun Violence While Protecting Second Amendment Rights?"

🎯 The Proposal: The Gas-Operated Semi-Automatic Firearms Exclusion (GOSAFE) Act, introduced by Rep. Lucy McBath (D-GA), seeks to reduce gun violence in America by increasing federal regulation over certain gas-operated semi-automatic firearms, large-capacity magazines, and related modifications.

🔍 Key Provisions:

• Establishes a list of prohibited firearms based on their inherent lethality rather than cosmetic features.
• Prevents unlawful modifications, self-assembly, and manufacturing of firearms.
• Limits high-capacity ammunition devices and outlaws conversion devices.
• Protects Second Amendment rights by including exemptions based on maximum ammunition capacity for rifles, shotguns, and handguns.

👥 Bipartisan Support: The GOSAFE Act, formally known as H.R.8600, has companion legislation in the U.S. Senate led by Senators Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Angus King (I-ME), Mark Kelly (D-AZ), and Michael Bennet (D-CO).

Now, this particular piece doesn't include quotes from anyone. However, it leaves out so much about this particular proposal that it's beyond ridiculous.

First, let's understand that this whole "prohibits firearms based on their inherent lethality" is just a way to get around the fact that the last assault weapon ban was circumvented within a month after passage. They're going after the way the guns operate versus anything else.

There is no way to quantify the inherent lethality of a firearm in any objective way, so the GOSAFE Act really just targets certain guns that lawmakers have decided are too "icky" for law-abiding citizens to own.

Further, you cannot protect the Second Amendment by infringing upon the Second Amendment. All gun control laws infringe on the right to keep and bear arms, and if you're going to try to pass gun control, at least acknowledge that fact. Don't try to sell this as someone protecting my right to own guns because it restricts what guns I can own.

We don't protect free speech by banning certain words or phrases. We don't protect freedom of religion by banning certain faiths. We don't protect the freedom of the press by restricting certain publishing platforms.

So how can anyone claim a law restricting guns--and the most popular rifle type in the nation is precisely what will be affected--protects the Second Amendment?

Then again, we've got a piece claiming that this bill has bipartisan support that doesn't name a single Republican supporter.

Funny, that.

Then again, if you think preserving the Second Amendment involves restricting what guns you can own, you probably don't understand what "bipartisan" means in the first place.

Or you're AI.

That's right, all of this is an AI-generated piece that one would imagine was prompted to create a summary of the GOSAFE bill.

While I can't tell which AI wrote this, ZeroGPT says 93.22% of the text quoted above was written by AI.

Yet here's the thing, AI doesn't just pull stuff out of the ether. It comes from somewhere, and while there's a profound anti-gun bias in at least some AIs, they can't really create out of nothing. Instead, they pull from elsewhere on the internet.

In other words, there are apparently some folks out there that really believe this stuff, but because it was churned out by an AI that didn't include sources for its stupidity, we don't know precisely where that is.

Where that's a problem is that many people will read this and think that yes, this preserves the Second Amendment, all because this says so. Even if they realize it's AI--unlikely in a lot of cases--they may also figure that since the AI can't exactly lie, precisely, then the information must be true.

Of course, they forget that AI can't discern a lie from the truth, either, it can repeat a lie easily enough.

But the truth is that the idea that this bill could preserve our rights is ridiculous.