Chelsea Handler: ‘My armed guards don’t have semi-automatic weapons’

OPINION:

While engaging in a debate over gun control on Twitter, Chelsea Handler made an astounding claim about her armed security detail: 

My armed guards aren’t killing children and don’t have semi automatic weapons.

— Chelsea Handler (@chelseahandler) March 28, 2018

 

Of course, it is not astounding that the former E! Channel, former Netflix and apparently future NBC talk show host has armed security guards who don’t kill children, but the notion that they don’t carry handguns that discharge spent cartridges and load a round of ammunition automatically on each trigger pull is dumbfounding and impossible to believe. 

Either Handler has employed armed security personnel who employ questionable defensive tactics or Ms. Handler, an outspoken proponent of gun control laws, doesn’t have a fundamental understanding of the weapons she advocates to regulate. 

This squares with a recent poll that suggests that a majority (63%) of Americans want to ban semi-automatic weapons. However, there are two problems with the much-ballyhooed poll. 

The first problem is the question. Registered voters were asked if they “banning the sale and ownership of all semi-automatic and automatic firearms.” Of course, automatic weapons are already illegal in most cases and lumping them in with semi-automatic is quite problematic if ones goal is to really understand if the American people favor such a drastic gun control measure.

And the second problem is that the poll never properly defines what a semi-automatic weapon is. And as is proven by Ms. Handler’s remarkable statement about her security guards, most Americans (including media figures) have a lamentable lack of fundamental understanding of the very thing they passionately want to restrict.