During Thursday’s edition of ABC’s The View co–host Joy Behar expressed bewilderment that Gov. Chris Sununu (R) will not ban the AR-15, which she described as “automatic rifle” used in high profile shootings.
The hosts brought up gun control, with Whoopi Goldberg asking why Republicans refuse to ban AR-15s.
She asked, “Why are you holding on to this one gun?”
Behar quickly added, “The AR-15. The automatic rifle that kills a bunch of children that are just going to school. That gun.”
Sununu responded by explaining that a ban on a certain gun is not going to stop attackers from attacking.
He said, “If it was that easy, the Democrats would have done it.”
Elsewhere in the interview Sununu said, “The Democrats had the House, Senate, and the Presidency for two years, they did nothing [regarding a ban on the AR-15].”
Host Star Jones responded to Sununu by saying the Democrats “made a mistake” by not enacting gun control during those two years.
During the May 19, 2023, airing of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) claimed an AR-15 rifle is an “automatic weapon.”
Breitbart News fact checked Grisham’s claim, noting that it was false. AR-15 rifles are semiautomatic firearms that fire one round per trigger pull.
Behar’s claim that AR-15s are “automatic” is false as well.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010 and holds a Ph.D. in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.