MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace hosted some friendly cohorts on “Deadline: White House” last Tuesday, one of which was gun control activist Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter was tragically murdered by a psychopathic teenager in the Parkland, Florida school massacre in 2018; the law enforcement response to which has been the source of much controversy, although left-wing pundits tend to ignore that and are wont to use that mass shooting and others like it as reasoning for the disarmament of law-abiding citizens.

(Video: MSNBC)

Setting up Guttenberg for his tirade, Wallace tried to get ahead of the already-snuffed-out notion that states led by Republican governors are the most rife with crime, when both qualitative and quantitative evidence show that large cities run by Democrats are the main factor in those statistical spikes.

While one anecdote doesn’t amount to data, a lot of anecdotes necessarily become data. For example, the state of Texas is run by a Republican governor, but the city of Houston, the fourth largest city in the nation with a metroplex comprised of more than six million people, is run by Democrat Sylvester Turner and has under his leadership become a haven for crime and poverty, both of which beget the other.

Second only to non-contiguous Alaska in terms of square mileage at (AK – 665,384, TX – 268,597), it’s intellectually dishonest to say that a Republican-led state with such large rural areas is guilty by association for crime in its bigger cities.

But as floundering networks like MSNBC continue to demonstrate every day, their golden rule is to never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

“When you look at Republicans running on crime, the most deadly places to live in America — the places where gun crime is the worst, where you have the greatest risk of dying, are all states run by Republicans. So I just don’t understand how we communicate that in the two weeks left to go before the midterms,” Wallace fretted to her guests.

Guttenberg was raring to go.

“Listen, the crime argument is the other big lie, and, you know, let’s talk about Uvalde. Those families have been heroic because they lost what they love. You can look at a state like Texas, and every legislative decision they’ve made in the past bunch of years to weaken gun safety laws, and draw a straight line from that to DNA kits going home with parents. It is because of them. They did it. It is the reason Texas is a deadly state,” he declared.

According to CNN, the DNA kits Guttenberg referred to are inkless kits that parents could optionally use and have on hand in case of an abduction. Critics of the bill say it is meant for parents to identify the bodies of their children after a now-ostensibly-inevitable school shooting, even though the bill passed the Texas State Legislature in 2021, long before the Uvalde, Texas massacre.

Guttenberg continued, “Here’s where I’m at, Nicolle — 37 percent of this country, they are indoctrinated. They are radicalized. I am not changing their mind. But, you know what, I believe the rest of this country does care. I believe they do care about safety. I believe they are horrified by DNA test kits, and I believe they want to see President Biden do more.”

Later in the segment, Wallace rehashed her attempt to entrench a logical fallacy in the minds of her limited viewership as the midterms loom large over a Democrat Party that is languishing in a sea of their own failed policies, yet never seems to suffer from them as the commoners do.

“Ten states with the highest gun rate deaths — according to the CDC, Mississippi, Louisiana, Wyoming, Missouri, Alabama, Alaska, New Mexico, Arkansas, South Carolina and Tennessee. Now, I didn’t have time to get to the websites of all the state officials, but I’m sure many of them are running on crime if they’re up in two weeks.

“How do you undo the lies that are told about the threat Democrats pose when it comes to crime when the 10 states where the highest where the gun death rates are — are — are run by Republicans,” she asked listlessly, articulating her words in a bit of a hungover way.

(Video: MSNBC)

Fellow traveler Joy Reid also joined Wallace for the segment, perhaps hoping to be seen on live TV considering her own show on any given night is watched by four people and a cat.

Get the latest BPR news delivered free to your inbox daily. SIGN UP HERE

• About
• Latest Posts

Frank Webster

Staff Writer

Frank (Chip) Webster is a musician and composer, former teacher of percussion and U.S. Army Infantry veteran. He holds a degree in English from Arizona State University.

Latest posts by Frank Webster (see all)

• Our Republic is absolutely doomed if this is the answer to intellectual discourse - September 12, 2025
• The left’s violent ideologies … the end always justifies the means - March 25, 2025
• A study of the past is usually a reasoned explanation of the present - July 16, 2024

Comment

We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.