Project 2025 has been getting a lot of digital ink lately. The reason? Some people have to be outraged over something, and The Heritage Foundation's white paper is just the perfect fodder.

Especially since most of the people engaging in the doomsaying have no clue at all what's in it.

And doomsaying has been plentiful.

Apparently, despite it coming from a thinktank and having absolutely no legislative force and not even really being approved of by the Republican Party--Trump himself said he liked some parts of it and disliked others, which means if he wins, it won't be enacted en mass--it's going to happen if Democrats don't win in November.

And now, it seems it's going to kill us all via gun violence or something.

In its extremist Mandate for Leadership, dubbed “Project 2025: Presidential Transition Project,” the far-right Heritage Foundation has outlined an extreme policy vision to put power—and profits—back in the hands of the corporate gun lobby at the expense of public safety. Among other radical proposals, this agenda calls for undermining the effectiveness of federal law enforcement and replacing experts tasked with protecting the American people with far-right loyalists who don’t know how to keep our communities safe. In May 2024, Project 2025 had a booth at the annual National Rifle Association (NRA) convention, demonstrating its architects’ commitment to prioritizing guns over people. Recently, Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts even made concerning references to armed political violence on Steve Bannon’s podcast, saying: “[W]e are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.” In a post on X, the Heritage Foundation repeated Roberts’ threat of a bloodless revolution.

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For instance, the latest Republican Study Committee (RSC) budget calls for eliminating vital tools used by law enforcement to reduce violence. This includes defunding “red flag” laws, which allow law enforcement to temporarily remove firearms from someone who poses an imminent risk of harm to themselves or others, and destroying firearm records used by law enforcement to solve gun crimes. If enacted, these extreme policies would threaten every individual’s right to feel safe and be free from gun violence.

Except "defunding 'red flag' laws" only means an end to federal funds going to states. It doesn't end red flag laws across the board and it doesn't prohibit states from enacting those laws.

If red flags are constitutional--and I believe they're not, but for the sake of argument, let's pretend they are--then that's one thing, but there's nothing inherently in those that demands federal funding. States enacted red flag laws on their own without any need for federal tax dollars, so why is it so mission critical now?

The short answer is that it's not. The federal funding for these measures was controversial in the first place, in part because the money is coming from a lot of taxpayers who see these laws as an infringement on both their right to keep and bear arms and their due process rights.

And we've seen numerous cases where mass shootings were stopped without needing any such law, so this is hardly the end of the world.

But wait...there's more.

In addition to impeding law enforcement efforts to hold shooters accountable, the right-wing policy agenda would defund proven crime prevention strategies. For example, the Heritage Foundation’s recommendation to take billions of dollars out of the Crime Victims Fund, which addresses survivors’ needs to heal and break the cycle of violence, subsequently made it into the RSC budget. The RSC budget also calls for eliminating Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) funding that goes toward gun violence research and ending structural racism.

The Crime Victims Fund is already going to be funded. The paper calls for reducing that funding, but when you're strapped for cash--and considering the national debt, the United States government is most definitely strapped for cash--you have to cut pretty much everywhere. Nothing, however, calls for an end to any such funding.

Moreover, there's no evidence that the Crime Victims Fund prevents crime. It might help people dealing with being a victim, sure, but it doesn't stop the perpetrator from hurting someone else. So how is this a "proven crime prevention strategy" in any way?

It's not.

Then we have the CDC.

Of course, this is from the Center for American Progress, which isn't about progress but about setting the stage for the oppression of the American people with their leftist agenda. They need the CDC funding for "gun violence research" knowing good and well what they'll get is more and more anti-gun propaganda paid for by the American taxpayers.

The CDC can't be trusted to look into this important topic because they've made it clear that their biases are strong and that they can't put them aside. 

The CAP also takes issue with concealed carry reciprocity, arguing that more people carrying guns would create bloodshed. That's fascinating since we saw the aftermath of Bruen when states were suddenly required to approve permits for people who lacked a good reason for such a permit. This put a lot more permits in citizens' hands and a lot more guns on the streets.

Homicides dropped.

Now, correlation doesn't equal causation, but if your premise is that more guns mean more problems but we see more guns and have fewer problems, well...

At its core, the issue here is that Project 2025 doesn't advance an anti-gun narrative and instead promotes more freedom for the right to keep and bear arms. We know definitively that this is a good thing, but they don't like it so that suddenly becomes the worst thing ever.