The Media Research Center’s Catherine Salgado declared in a Feb. 18 post that ghost guns are not an issue — and, therefore, videos about them shouldn’t be expunged from shouldn’t be expunged from YouTube — because not enough criminals are using them and not enough people are getting killed by them:
In the latest censorship effort to demonize self-defense tools, five Democratic Party senators are pressuring YouTube to remove “ghost gun” videos.
“Ghost guns are unserialized firearms that anyone can get their hands on—without a background check—and put together themselves with a 3D-printer or a do-it-yourself gun-making kit purchased from an unlicensed seller,” the five senators, led by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), wrote in the letter to YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki. “As a result, ghost guns have become the weapon of choice for gun traffickers and convicted felons as well as domestic violent extremists and foreign terrorists.”
The senators insisted that the gun assembly videos violated YouTube’s guidelines and needed to be taken down, asserting “ghost guns” “pose a dangerous and deadly threat to communities.”
Statistics undercut claims from Democrats about the threat of ghost guns. The evidence shows that “ghost guns” account for a very small percentage of weapons seized by law enforcement. For instance, Chicago saw a significantly higher proportion of ghost guns seized in 2020. Still, only 139 out of the 11,258 seized firearms were “ghost guns,” about 1.2 percent of the total, according to The Washington Times. “A 2019 Department of Justice study found that 43% of criminals purchased guns on the black market, but none made their weapons at home,” The Washington Times reported.
Salgado didn’t say how many criminals need to be using ghost guns or how many people need to be killed by them before she considers them to be a threat sufficient to be dealt with. Yet it’s unambiguous that ghost guns are increasingly linked to crime and death.
But she’s enough of a right-wing true believer to invoke the Second Amendment and another right-wing newspaper:
The Washington Examiner explained that the “ghost guns” are “not classified by the government as firearms because they are not fully functioning guns when sold in kits,” meaning that they lack traceable serial numbers. Pro-gun activists see the senators’ demand of YouTube as an attack on the Second Amendment, The Examiner noted.
Salgado did not explain how the Second Amendment preempts the First.