By John Crump
U.S.A. –-(Ammoland.com)- Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) is disputing the Washington Post Fact Checker that gave him “three Pinocchio” (this would indicate lying) for stating on CNN’s “State of the Union,” that stricter gun laws will reduce gun crimes. “What we know is that states that have tougher gun laws, that keep criminals from getting guns that keep those dangerous weapons like AR-15s out of the hands of civilians have dramatically lower rates of gun violence,” Sen. Murphy told the show
The Washington Post Fact Checking Department was quick to call him out on his misleading statements made during this TV interview. The first thing the Washington Post did was check the studies that Sen Murphy cited as his evidence. What The Post found out was that none of the studies even looked at crimes using AR-15s. It is unclear if Sen. Murphy read the studies himself and somehow got confused, or was just repeating talking points anti-gun groups fed him.
One Johns Hopkins University study on gun issues in Missouri that Sen. Murphy cited did not even show that stricter gun laws would decrease crime as he claimed. Another problem that The Washington Post identified is that this study only looked at one state and Sen. Murphy cherry-picked data from the research and molded it to fit his anti-gun position.
According Gun rights advocate John R. Lott Jr., “We can try to control for income, poverty, law enforcement, demographics, etc., but there are other differences with culture and other factors that we can’t measure very well.” He is referring to single state studies. Johns Hopkins University agrees with him on this point.
The thing that Sen Murphy didn’t use from the study is that it showed that when Missouri repealed its “permit-to-purchase” (PTP) law and enacted a “stand your ground” law that murder rates dropped. We can not confirm if he didn’t read that part of the study, or he chose not to acknowledge it.
Sen Murphy cited a study that showed that states with the fewest law guns have the most gun crimes. What Sen Murphy did was use a chart from the National Journal and not a study. This chart included suicides in its data. When the Washington Post removed suicides from the data, the results were vastly different. Sen Murphy argues that suicides should be included in the chart because they are gun crimes.
The most damning piece of evidence against Sen Murphy’s claim was a report by George Mason University that looked at the Clinton era “assault weapons” ban. It determined that “should it be renewed, the ban’s effects on gun violence are likely to be small at best and perhaps too small for reliable measurement.”
Sen. Murphy criticized the Washington Post and made it sound like The Post has been fighting for years against gun laws. He went as far as claiming The Washington Post Fact checkers have been arguing against gun laws for years. The Washington Post is a left-leaning paper owned by Jeff Bezos whos other company, Amazon, helped fund a gun buyback.
Sen Murphy said “The data is clear and overwhelming. Smart gun laws save lives. Congress needs to wake up to that reality — soon.” He accuses The Washington Post fact-checkers from using pro-NRA sources. It seems that Sen Murphy believes that George Mason University and Johns Hopkins University are pro-NRA sources.
After Sen Murphy referenced data he seemed to go the other direction by stating, “And sometimes, you don’t need studies. You need common sense. If bump stocks were illegal, more people would have survived Las Vegas.”
About John Crump
John is an NRA instructor and a constitutional activist. He is the former CEO of Veritas Firearms, LLC and is the co-host of The Patriot News Podcast which can be found at www.blogtalkradio.com/patriotnews. John has written extensively on the patriot movement including 3%’ers, Oath Keepers, and Militias. In addition to the Patriot movement, John has written about firearms, interviewed people of all walks of life, and on the Constitution. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons and is currently working on a book on the history of the patriot movement and can be followed on Twitter at @crumpyss or at www.crumpy.com.
