Al Sharpton says "mass killings" are the result of "mass instruments."
Sharpton made the comment during a recent appearance Friday on MSNBC.
There, Sharpton commented upon President Joe Biden's recent creation of the Office of Gun Violence Prevention. It appears that Biden, with the office, is going to try to pursue the same sort of gun control policies that he and his fellow Democrats have been unable to get through Congress.
Sharpton, during his MSNBC appearance, took the opportunity to make a gun control plea of his own.
Sharpton began by bemoaning a lack of sufficient gun control in America.
"This is the most dangerous time, particularly for young people, that we've seen in American history," Sharpton claimed, adding, "And yet you have almost a wall there of people saying, ‘No, we're not giving up our AR-15s. We're not giving up not even background checks."
Sharpton's statement, here, is already problematic. But, it gets worse.
Sharpton went on to claim that "people cannot do mass killings unless they have mass instruments."
Then, Sharpton said, "We're arming bigots. We're arming people that are not respectful of the United States citizen. All of these people are being armed by our lack of legislation."
Those opposed to gun control frequently argue that guns do not kill people, but people kill people. They, further argue that gun control laws do not work because the people who carry out violent crimes do not follow the law anyway.
But, even if one were to ignore such arguments, Sharpton's comments are still wrong on multiple levels. Breitbart News demonstrates this in a fact-checking article that it has published.
The outlet, for example, reports, "[Sharpton] did not mention the work done via a partnership between Northeastern University, the Associated Press, and USA Today, which traces 'mass killings' back to 2006 and shows 'semiautomatic handguns are far more common in mass killings than guns that are typically characterized as assault weapons, such as the AR-15.'"
The outlet continues, "Graphs used by Northeastern/AP/USA Today show handguns are used in 'mass killings' almost twice as much as 'long guns,' the latter being a category which includes shotguns, rifles of every kind, etc."
Breitbart goes on to disprove other remarks made by Sharpton. But, if outlets had to fact-check everything Sharpton says, then they would not have time to report on anything else. Sharpton's job is not to put forth rational arguments, but to garner support through emotional pleas - and, in this regard, he is effective, at least with Democrats.
