MSNBC’s Joy Reid has said a lot of questionable things over the years. But what she said this week about what she did on July 4th is truly something else.

She was speaking about guns on her show. First, she tried to smear Florida as some kind of violent hellhole. The purpose was to take a smack at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is running for the Republican nomination for president. She’s taken wild shots at him in the past, as we’ve reported. She introduced a guest, Ryan Busse, who she described as battling the gun industry, and confessed to him that she hadn’t gone out on July 4th because of the guns.

MSNBC’s @JoyAnnReid: “ I did not go out on July 4th & would not. The idea of going to a mass gathering, a parade, or a big fireworks thing outside seems insane to me, to be blunt, in America, because America is awash with guns & people … seem to want to shoot people.” pic.twitter.com/MGWo8ebkTj

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) July 6, 2023

“I have to say, I did not go out on July 4th and would not. The idea of going to a mass gathering, a parade, or a big fireworks thing outside seems insane to me, to be blunt, in America, because America is awash with guns, and now people don’t just have them, they seem to want to shoot people with them and use them for whatever, you know?,” she said.

She asked what has changed in society,

Busse spoke about the increase in the number of guns, and claimed that we were “stress testing our democracy.”

“In fact, nothing is more targeted at the ability to remove the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness of fellow citizens in a second or two, dozens of them as we have seen than the right to own firearms,” he claimed.

Reid stoked the fear a little more, claiming there were more violent incidents against Asian Americans because former President Donald Trump “pinned COVID on China.”

“And so the gun industry goes, oh, Asian-Americans, buy more guns. When ever there’s a mass shooting, you see people buy more guns. And now I don’t know how anybody can be a Doordash-er. I don’t know how anybody can do a job where they have to deliver to someone’s home or deliver Amazon. Ringing a doorbell is deadly now. The industry has also encouraged not — the stand your ground laws say don’t just have a gun, shoot someone. Use it. Somebody rings your doorbell, shoot them because we’ll protect you under the law,” she said.

So basically don’t go out, don’t go to any event, don’t do your job, because of the fear that we are preaching.

First, I’m not sure I accept her word that she didn’t go out. But if she did, how sad is that, if she’s locking herself in because of the fear that she’s preaching?

It reminds me of the liberal fears/narrative during COVID. I had a friend who used to love to go out with his family and travel, go to nice restaurants. But with COVID he refused, saying it could place his life in danger. For three years, he restricted himself that way, cutting off the things that had given him enjoyment in life because of the narrative being preached. Then, when Joe Biden said the emergency was over, he decided it was okay to resume his life as he had before. How sad that so much of his life was cut off because of the fear.

But Reid is also trying to sell this to her audience as though this is a rational way to respond to things, when it is a way to stoke up the anger at guns, rather than addressing the underlying issues like mental health and societal issues. It’s a way to pump the anti-gun narrative and make people emotional. While she seemed to want to target guns, she inadvertently revealed they weren’t the problem when she noted that we’ve always had a lot of guns so what’s changed?

All she needed to do was take one further step then to realize it isn’t the guns, but the society that’s changed. That’s what needs to be addressed, but she and her liberal cohort doesn’t want to go there. They also don’t want to look at the fact that a lot of the problem is in Democratic cities that are not adequately addressing crime.

If you’re not holding people accountable, you tend to get more of the bad behavior. Reid was for the defund the police movement, yet she can’t see the connection between the two issues or why that would have made things worse when you hamstring the police.

When you encourage chaos, you get more of it, and that’s what the Democratic policies on crime (and so many other things) are doing. Address that, don’t hide in your house.