By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
Democrats aren’t having very good luck with guns this campaign season.
First, there was Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz’s alleged clumsiness with a semi-auto shotgun in a hunting event for the media, apparently designed to bolster his image as a hunter and gun owner.
Now comes an incident in Missouri where Democrat and former U.S. Marine Lucas Kunce, who is challenging Sen. Josh Hawley, fired a bullet during a scene in which a reporter covering the event was slightly wounded by what may have been a bullet fragment ricocheting off a metal target.
KSHB reporter Ryan Gamboa was hit in the right arm, and Kunce quickly sprang into action to stop the bleeding and bandage the wound, which was described as superficial and non-life-threatening.
According to Fox News, Kunce was shooting a semiautomatic rifle at some nearby metallic targets, essentially showing his credentials as a seasoned gun owner and shooter.
Afterward, Kunce told reporters there were multiple first aid kits on scene, and the shooting event was being overseen by an NRA-certified range safety officer.
Fox publicized some of the reactions from viewers.
One man declared in a post at X (formerly Twitter), “Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.” Conservative communicator Steve Guest observed, “Shooting steel targets this close is a recipe for disaster.”
Federalist co-founder and CEO Sean Davis also got in a couple of licks: “Absolutely mind-blowing insanity from a candidate for a political party that wants to take away your guns because it claims you can’t safely own them.”
So far, it has only been Democrats trying to relate to outdoorsmen and women—dubbed “gun voters” by some pundits, who seem to get messed up while involved in such things. There was the famous goose hunt involving then-presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry back in 2004 in which he was panned by th e media: “Sen. John Kerry bought camouflage coveralls, picked up a shotgun and went hunting for votes Thursday in a cornfield,” wrote Todd J. Gillman at the Dallas Morning News. “At his side was a yellow Labrador named Woody, which was apt, since Kerry needs all the ‘’yellow dogs’ – a term for conservative Democrats – he can get.
“He and his four-man hunting party crouched in a blind on a supporters’ farm near Youngstown,” Gillman ‘s narrative continued, “bagging four geese and, more importantly, news coverage featuring images of him clad head-to-toe in hunting gear, gun cradled over an arm, looking tough, manly and outdoorsy.”
The New York Post dubbed it a “wild goose chase.” The newspaper was not trolling for laughs, entirely.
In a statement posted on X, Kunce explained, “Great day at the range today with my friend
@AdamKinzinger. We got to hang out with some union workers while exercising our freedom. Always have your first aid kit handy. Shrapnel can always fly when you hit a target like today, and you’ve got to be ready to go. We had four first aid kits, so we were able to take care of the situation, and I’m glad Ryan is okay and was able to continue reporting.”
In the future, however, perhaps politicians should stay away from firearms, at least when there are reporters nearby and there’s a “D” next to their name.
