Giffords, originally launched to advance the cause of gun control after the 2011 shooting of former Rep. Gabby Giffords, has clearly broadened its scope of operations. This week the civilian disarmament operation demanded a “full, transparent, and independent investigation” into the fatal shooting of 52-year-old Lorenzo Salgado Araujo by an ICE agent during a traffic stop in Houston’s east end.
Giffords began as something called “Americans for Responsible Solutions.” That awkward name promoted the fiction that the org was neither pro- nor anti-gun. They were allegedly neutral on the issue, they claimed, but in favor of arriving at conveniently nebulous “solutions.” That only resulted in wondering, if their cause was so just, why the need to obfuscate and deceive?
Anyway, after three years or so, ARS dropped the tissue-thin pretense of neutrality on gun control and rebranded (the gun control industry has a long record of rebrands and terrible monikers) as simply Giffords, an outfit that now claims is “fighting to end the gun lobby’s stranglehold on our political system.”
Which brings us to how Giffords has morphed from promoting gun control for the average citizen to now defending illegal aliens who try to murder federal agents. All in the name of doing something about America’s alleged “gun violence epidemic.” Or something.
Yes, if you read the whole post above (click here), Giffords closed with, “Our communities deserve to be safe and free from gun violence.”
Here, however, is what they didn’t include in their X post. According to the Department of Homeland Security and ICE, agents were conducting a targeted enforcement operation to arrest Araujo, a Mexican national who had been in the country illegally for the last 35 years.
When agents attempted to make a traffic stop to arrest him, Araujo tried to evade, rammed an ICE law enforcement vehicle, ignored multiple verbal commands, and allegedly “weaponized his vehicle” in an attempt to run over an officer. The agent fired in self-defense, striking Araujo in the abdomen. He was transported to a hospital where he later died.
Notably absent from Giffords’ post: Araujo’s illegal immigration status, the ramming of the federal vehicle, and any mention of the clear self-defense context of the shooting. Instead, Giffords described him sympathetically as “a father, husband and business owner who had been in the country for 35 years” and linked the incident to the need for communities to be “safe and free from gun violence.”
Replies to the post were disabled. Because of course they were.
The irony here is thick. Giffords, which routinely calls for restricting access to firearms for law-abiding Americans, is framing a defensive shooting by a federal law enforcement officer — who had the only gun involved in the incident — as an example of “gun violence,” as if this was just another gang shooting. No firearm was reportedly found on Araujo. The weapon he used to threaten ICE officers was his two-ton van.
What we have here, then, is a classic case of omnicause mission creep. A gun control outfit is now inserting itself into immigration enforcement disputes, siding against officers simply doing their jobs. Family members and activists dispute details of what happened and call for more video to be released and an investigation, but the core facts remain: an unlawful presence in the country followed by violent resistance to a lawful traffic stop.
Law enforcement personnel deserve support when confronting deadly threats, not selective outrage from advocacy groups trying to advance their narrative. Americans (increasingly naively) expect honest reporting on these incidents, not sanitized, selective narratives that take the side of illegal immigrants over officer safety and the rule of law. But honest reporting — whatever that is or was — is now virtually nonexistent.
As for Giffords? Maybe after a consistent record of defeats on the gun control front, they now have to broaden their scope to remain relevant to their donors and keep the cash flowing in. Stay tuned.