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(LifeSiteNews) — Tech mogul and potential future Twitter owner Elon Musk took a mixed stance on gun rights in the wake of last week’s shooting at Robb Elementary School that killed 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas.
Musk endorses some new restrictions on firearm purchases while calling the Second Amendment an “important safeguard against potential tyranny.”
“I strongly believe that the right to bear arms is an important safeguard against potential tyranny of government. Historically, maintaining their power over the people is why those in power did not allow public ownership of guns,” the Tesla and SpaceX CEO told CNBC via email.
At the same time, Musk endorsed “tight background checks” for gun sales (background checks are already federally required, though their “tightness” can vary by state), as well as limiting the sale of so-called “assault weapons” to certain circumstances, such as owning a gun range or living in a particularly dangerous area. Gun control opponents argue that the term “assault weapon” is little more than a gun with any number of details, like detachable magazines or collapsible stocks, that don’t actually make the gun more dangerous than a hunting rifle.
Musk also asked why the media was “doing exactly what the mass murderers want” by giving them “the most amount of attention possible.”
While conservatives and liberals would both object to different aspects of Musk’s gun thoughts, they are consistent with his self-assessment as an independent-minded moderate who is only now considered “right-wing” due to the Left’s increasing radicalism. This lends credence to his promise to make social network Twitter fairer to all users should he ultimately take over the company.
Musk made a successful bid in April to purchase Twitter; however, he recently announced that the sale is on hold pending details on whether spam or other fake accounts really do account for fewer than 5 percent of the platform’s users.
Like other major online information and communications platforms, Twitter has since 2016 grown more aggressive in down-ranking and suppressing political speech at odds with their left-wing politics, most egregiously on the COVID-19 debate, election integrity, and transgenderism.
Most infamously, prior to the 2020 presidential election Twitter suppressed the New York Post’s reporting, which has since been vindicated, on a laptop President Joe Biden’s son Hunter had abandoned at a Delaware computer repair shop. The laptop contained scores of emails and texts detailing how the Biden family made millions of dollars through Hunter’s facilitation of meetings between his father and business interests around the world.
As for the gun debate, the Uvalde tragedy elicited emotionally-charged rhetoric from Democrats demanding new restrictions on Americans’ ability to own firearms, despite high levels of violence in Democrat-controlled cities indicating the ineffectiveness of such measures. Others suggest the solution is greater diligence in identifying and acting on warning signs displayed by potential shooters, or instituting full-time professional security at schools.