Giffords Tries to Use Philando Castile to Push…What?

The Philando Castile incident still infuriates me all these years later.

For those who don’t remember, Castile was pulled over by police. He disclosed he was licensed to carry a concealed firearm and was carrying one. He said he wasn’t reaching for the gun while reaching for his wallet, only the officer shot and killed him.

The NRA got a lot of heat for not addressing the incident, though I’ve spoken with representatives about it, and they saw it as an internal police issue and thus elected not to weigh in. I understand that, though I disagree with them. Other groups did weigh in and none of them sided with the officer in the incident.

Most of us see it as the kind of thing that should never happen and Philando Castile was killed for no good reason. It’s an artifact of the anti-gun hysteria pushed by gun control groups.

On Sunday, though, Giffords had a different take.

Nine years ago today, a police officer shot and killed Philando Castile in front of his girlfriend and young daughter.

Philando had a permit to carry and disclosed this to the officer, who then murdered him in what should have been a routine traffic stop. Philando should still… pic.twitter.com/ebHyqhnV0w

— GIFFORDS (@GIFFORDS_org) July 6, 2025

Post continues:

Philando should still be alive, but 2A rights are not equally applied to Black gun owners. It’s long past time for change.

Now, I don’t necessarily disagree with the words themselves. Too often, black gun owners are treated very differently by police. Philando Castile was gunned down for exercising his constitutionally protected rights.

But the thing is that Giffords doesn’t give a damn about anyone’s rights. Not like this.

They’re not campaigning for black gun owners to be free of something like this happening, except by trying to make it so no one can concealed carry anywhere. They support things like duty to inform laws, in fact, and Castile’s problems started when he informed the officer he had a gun. They support increased gun control across the board.

And, as we’ve seen in countless examples, increased gun control tends to impact the black community far more than it does elsewhere.

Gun control won’t prevent more Philando Castiles. It’ll create more of them.

In essence, many of the causes championed by Giffords led to Castile’s killing. It’ll lead to countless other killings if they get their way, and not just of young black men. 

They don’t care about the gun rights of Philando Castile or other black people in this country.

What they care about is leveraging racial tensions to push gun control under the insane guise of trying to…do what? Honestly, they’re not going to address what happened with Castile’s killing. They’re not interested in changing the environment or the outlook on armed citizens. They’re not going to do any of that.

It doesn’t really make any sense, and yet, they did just that.

To paraphrase Will Smith, “Keep Philando Castile’s name out of your mother****ing mouth.”

Giffords and groups like them bear a great deal of responsibility for his death, and many others. I’m not remotely interested in listening to them claim they want to prevent it.