South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham gets ripped to shreds by Democrats and liberals all the time, but it's not every day that he gets dragged by someone from his own party.
But the former chair of the Republican National Committee, Michael Steele, did just that recently, when Graham once again made a ludicrous spectacle of shilling for the gun lobby.
After Graham claimed guns have kept crime low in South Carolina, Steele dealt him a brutal fact check, seen below, that has gun safety advocates cheering.
Umm Senator perhaps you should speak with your State Law Enforcement Division before jawboning about South Carolina shooting people as a deterrence to violent crime: The murder rate went up around 25% in 2020; aggravated assault went up around 9% in 2020. https://www.foxcarolina.com/news/sled-violent-crime-continues-to-increase-in-south-carolina/article_ca9e4466-c4a3-11eb-b43b-7b9247920243.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=user-share\u00a0\u2026https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1419836834394345478\u00a0\u2026— Michael Steele (@Michael Steele) 1627352836
Steele's clapback followed an appearance by Graham on Fox News's The Sean Hannity Show in which he made several preposterous claims about crime in "Democratic cities" like San Francisco.
First Graham painted a picture of his home state of South Carolina as a utopia where crime is curtailed by the state being awash in unhinged vigilantes shooting criminals with guns.
"If you do this crap in South Carolina, you'll be lucky if you go to jail. You'll be lucky if someone doesn't shoot you."
He then scolded "Democratic cities" for being supposedly lawless war zones where marauding bands of thugs are regularly robbing Walmarts, or something.
"We've lost deterrence. These big Democratic cities and states have lost deterrence. People no longer feel afraid to assault someone in the streets. Nobody feels afraid to go into Walmart and clean out the place..."
Drive through any large American city and count how many Walmarts you actually see (spoiler alert: virtually none) and you'll get an idea of how much Graham actually knows about this subject.
Or you could simply observe crime rates, as Steele did on Twitter. As he pointed out, South Carolina's crime rate is soaring--in recently released statistics, the South Carolina State Law Enforcement Division reported the murder rate in Graham's home state has gone up 51% since 2016.
And speaking of the supposedly mortally dangerous, Democrat-led hellscape of California, both the CDC and the FBI have reported that South Carolina's murder rate is double that of the Golden State.
And then, of course, there's the fact that one of the most shocking and devastating mass shootings in this country's unbearable history occurred in Graham's supposedly tough-on-crime home state.
On Twitter, many applauded Steele's takedown of Graham's nonsense.
Masterful takedown with the facts combined with just enough sass. #Jawboningpic.twitter.com/Tgds7xbcV5— Vicki Shepherd (@Vicki Shepherd) 1627377266
Make this go viralhttps://twitter.com/MichaelSteele/status/1419846823100010497\u00a0\u2026— Demise's Diatribe (@Demise's Diatribe) 1627408327
pic.twitter.com/LPa8QGXOL9— David Crews PhD (@David Crews PhD) 1627386379
And many shared his exasperation with Graham's lies.
How does @LindseyGrahamSC know what is happening in SC? He appears far more involved in Throwing Georgia\u2019s election.— gail parkinson hardie (@gail parkinson hardie) 1627412029
Do you notice @LindseyGrahamSC only has the nerve to go on Fox and say this? Why is he afraid to go on a real network - after all, he's got his guns to protect him.— Jon Maas (@Jon Maas) 1627388663
A US Senator, and lawyer, openly advocating street justice, vigilantism and/or excessive use of force by police.— David Lapan (@David Lapan) 1627385431
In South Carolina they take murderers to Burger King for Christ sake\u2026Prove me wrong— Waffle House Confidential (@Waffle House Confidential) 1627367224
and you wonder why SC @LindseyGrahamSC ranks 45th in education— B mac (@B mac) 1627356021
He wouldn't know he's never in the State he supposedly represents— knowledge \u270a\ud83c\udffe (@knowledge \u270a\ud83c\udffe) 1627353037
How did this man get re-elected!— VotePlanet (@VotePlanet) 1627356308
Who can say why Graham is out here fabricating a low crime rate in South Carolina and then attributing it to high gun ownership, but the NRA did give him more than $10,000 in 2020, the sixth-highest amount paid to a Senator by the gun lobbying organization.
Probably just a coincidence.
@realDonaldTrump/Truth Social
@realDonaldTrump/Truth Social