Sen. JD Vance wasn't who I expected Donald Trump to pick as his running mate--Mike Pence was never an option, of course--but he did and Vance has largely done well on the campaign trail.

At least, one would imagine he did if you listened to what he actually says.

However, at least some in the media are bound and determined to misrepresent just about anything he says.

Recently, he spoke with a reporter for The Michigan Daily, the student newspaper for the University of Michigan where he was asked about guns and mass shootings. And, of course, the New Republic had to pretend he hadn't talked about the issue at all.

There have been at least 50 school shootings across the United States in 2024, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive. But the Republican presidential ticket doesn’t seem to have any solutions for preventing future violence.

Instead, JD Vance transparently dodged a direct question Tuesday from a reporter with The Michigan Daily, the University of Michigan campus newspaper, on the sensitive topic, choosing instead to ramble extensively about paltry school rivalries.

“Why should students in Michigan cast their vote for the Trump-Vance ticket, and additionally, how will your administration support students specifically concerning gun violence when you have rejected calls for tougher gun laws and bans on bump stocks?” the student reporter asked, to jeering and booing from the MAGA crowd. “Essentially, why should students concerned about their safety on campus vote for you?”

It quickly became clear that Vance had no intention of actually answering the question.

“First, let’s be honest here, I don’t know if an Ohio State graduate is the best messenger to University of Michigan students,” Vance said to cheers. “In fact—maybe, we should just get a clip of me saying something nice about Kamala Harris out to the University of Michigan because maybe then they’d all vote for Donald J. Trump if you just told them I was a Buckeye.

College rivalries are a thing and yes, Vance made light of the rivalry. So what? 

Now, if all he'd spoken of was the rivalry, I'd get being miffed. We want candidates to speak on the issues, to answer questions with actual answers, something we can determine whether or not this is someone we want running the executive branch of government or not.

But the thing is, Vance did talk about guns. They even admit it later, while still fumbling in their attempt to fact-check him.

Minutes later, Vance actually did have some words to share about the topic at hand.

“What I have said is that upwards of 90 percent of the gun crime that’s committed in this country is committed using an illegally obtained firearm,” Vance said.

In reality, a 2023 report by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, or ATF, found that the vast majority of guns used in crimes—roughly 99 percent—were purchased legally from a dealer, pawnbroker, or direct from a gun manufacturer, even if they were stolen and used in crimes later.

I read that last paragraph and just blinked at the blinding stupidity on display.

The absolute idiocy of that attempt at fact-checking is a sight to behold. We should construct a monument to it because it's honestly one of those things that only the extreme anti-gunners can come up with.

"The guns weren't obtained illegally. They were bought lawfully then stolen."

Holy crap, that's weapons-grade moronic. Like, if we could harness stupidity and turn it into electricity, we'd power the entire world for years on that statement alone.

No one disputes the original purchases were likely from a regular gun store and lawfully purchased. Vance didn't say anything to the contrary, either. What he said was that the crimes are committed with guns obtained illegally, meaning that the person who committed the crime didn't walk into a gun store and buy the firearm. Even the ATF acknowledges this fact. In fact, according to the ATF, Vance understated the case.

Again, this isn't rocket science.

Yet as bad as that is, and it's bad, the ultimate framing was that he didn't address the question. The writer claims Vance "dodged" the question, while later acknowledging that he did answer it.

Look, if you want to hit him for not answering it directly, that's one thing. The fact that the New Republic is all in on a candidate who can't answer a direct question to save her life would make it hypocritical, but it would at least be an attack on what actually happened.

Instead, they claim he didn't answer, right up until they admitted that he did, then offered up that BS "fact-check" or whatever that was supposed to be without even thinking for a nanosecond that nothing the ATF reported disputes what.