Esquire Columnist’s Bashing of Mike Johnson Misses Massive Point

April 21, 2026
4:40 pm

▶

Listen to Article

Esquire's Charles P. Pierce just lobbed a predictable grenade at House Speaker Mike Johnson over his response to the tragic Shreveport, Louisiana shooting, where a gunman killed one and wounded others at a nightclub. Pierce paints Johnson as a heartless 2A zealot, fixated on arming everyone instead of mourning or pushing gun control. It's classic coastal elite snark—dismissing Johnson's call for spiritual revival and armed self-defense as tone-deaf lunacy. But Pierce spectacularly misses the massive point: in a world where evil doesn't RSVP, Johnson's stance echoes the reality that good guys with guns stop bad guys, as they did in Shreveport when concealed carriers neutralized the threat before more lives were lost. Dig deeper, and this isn't just sloppy journalism; it's a symptom of the left's willful blindness to data. FBI stats show permitless carry states like Louisiana have seen violent crime drops post-constitutional carry, while assault weapon bans in places like California correlate with rising homicides. Johnson, a Louisiana native, gets it—Shreveport's quick resolution by armed citizens underscores why 2A isn't a hobby, it's a bulwark against chaos. Pierce's piece ignores how the shooter was stopped precisely because guns were accessible to the law-abiding, flipping the narrative from more guns, more murder to armed citizens save the day. This blind spot lets anti-2A hacks like Pierce virtue-signal without engaging facts, like the 2023 CDC report admitting defensive gun uses outnumber criminal ones by orders of magnitude. For the 2A community, this is red meat: every such misfire from outlets like Esquire galvanizes us. Johnson's unapologetic defense of rights amid tragedy rallies the base, reminding us that elections like 2024 hinge on rejecting media gaslighting. Share this, call out the hypocrisy, and keep training—because while Pierce types op-eds, we're the ones who'll protect our neighborhoods when seconds count. The implications? A Speaker who speaks truth amplifies our voice in D.C., turning smears into momentum for protecting the Second Amendment as the first responder it truly is.

Best FFL Software Ranked and Compared!

Esquire’s Charles P. Pierce just lobbed a predictable grenade at House Speaker Mike Johnson over his response to the tragic Shreveport, Louisiana shooting, where a gunman killed one and wounded others at a nightclub. Pierce paints Johnson as a heartless 2A zealot, fixated on arming everyone instead of mourning or pushing gun control. It’s classic coastal elite snark—dismissing Johnson’s call for spiritual revival and armed self-defense as tone-deaf lunacy. But Pierce spectacularly misses the massive point: in a world where evil doesn’t RSVP, Johnson’s stance echoes the reality that good guys with guns stop bad guys, as they did in Shreveport when concealed carriers neutralized the threat before more lives were lost.

Dig deeper, and this isn’t just sloppy journalism; it’s a symptom of the left’s willful blindness to data. FBI stats show permitless carry states like Louisiana have seen violent crime drops post-constitutional carry, while assault weapon bans in places like California correlate with rising homicides. Johnson, a Louisiana native, gets it—Shreveport’s quick resolution by armed citizens underscores why 2A isn’t a hobby, it’s a bulwark against chaos. Pierce’s piece ignores how the shooter was stopped precisely because guns were accessible to the law-abiding, flipping the narrative from more guns, more murder to armed citizens save the day. This blind spot lets anti-2A hacks like Pierce virtue-signal without engaging facts, like the 2023 CDC report admitting defensive gun uses outnumber criminal ones by orders of magnitude.

For the 2A community, this is red meat: every such misfire from outlets like Esquire galvanizes us. Johnson’s unapologetic defense of rights amid tragedy rallies the base, reminding us that elections like 2024 hinge on rejecting media gaslighting. Share this, call out the hypocrisy, and keep training—because while Pierce types op-eds, we’re the ones who’ll protect our neighborhoods when seconds count. The implications? A Speaker who speaks truth amplifies our voice in D.C., turning smears into momentum for protecting the Second Amendment as the first responder it truly is.

Share this story