CNN Host Costello Crushed by Facts on Gun Violence

During a June 23 appearance on CNN, Gun Owners of America’s Erich Pratt shut down host Carol Costello’s gun violence inquisition by reminding her that she had omitted defensive gun uses.

Pratt’s statement came after Costello referencecd Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) figures and said more than “100,000” people are wounded by gun shots annually, with “33,600” killed in 2013. She said the death figures included suicides but she did not point out that suicides constitute 66 percent of the death figures.

She then began an inquisition of Pratt based on the number of wounded and killed, but Pratt fired back, saying, “Well, what you failed to point out Carol is that the CDC als0–pursuant to President Obama issuing a decree to have them study this issue–they found that anywhere from 500,000 to 3 million times a year guns are being used for self-defense.”

Pratt then went straight into highlighting the ratio of guns used self-defense versus guns used for crime and Costello tried to shut him down by saying, “I just want to point out facts. I don’t know what study you’re citing.”

Pratt was quick to let Costello know he too was quoting from the CDC. She countered by arguing that the CDC is not allowed to do gun research, by which she meant to demonstrate that the CDC could not have come up with the numbers Pratt listed. So Pratt reminded her of Obama’s post-Sandy Hook executive order–issued January 2013–ordering the CDC to do the research.

Pratt pointed to a June 2013 Slate article on the CDC’s findings, and that article quotes the CDC, saying:

Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year.

AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.