Rep. Gregory Meeks’ breezy dismissal of public unrest under the Biden-Harris years is a textbook case of selective memory that should ring alarm bells for every gun owner. While the congressman insists the only “crazy” period was Trump’s term, the last three years have delivered record-breaking homicide spikes, smash-and-grab retail theft that turned cities into no-go zones, and a Justice Department that treats armed self-defense as a political liability. The same administration that lectures Americans about “assault weapons” quietly stood by as progressive DAs emptied jails and defelonized theft—policies that left law-abiding citizens to fill the security vacuum with their own firearms.

For the 2A community, the takeaway is straightforward: when elected officials gaslight about crime statistics, they are also gaslighting about the right to keep and bear arms. Every time a sanctuary-city mayor begs residents not to protect themselves, or a federal agency floats new pistol-brace or “ghost-gun” rules, the underlying message is the same—your safety is optional, our narrative is not. The surge in first-time gun buyers, especially among minorities and women, is not an irrational reaction to Trump-era tweets; it is a rational response to cities where carjackings are livestreamed and the cavalry arrives after the threat is gone.

Meeks’ claim that Democrats “can go on and on” about their record is an invitation the firearms community should accept. The data—FBI UCR tables, CDC injury reports, and ATF trace numbers—show an unmistakable correlation between soft-on-crime policies and defensive-gun uses climbing into the millions annually. Rather than accept a revisionist history that paints the last four years as placid, gun owners should treat every new restriction as a referendum on whether government can keep its side of the social contract. If officials cannot level with the public about violence, they forfeit any moral authority to limit the tools citizens use to survive it.