From the May 21 edition of NRATV’s Relentless:
DANA LOESCH (NRA NATIONAL SPOKESPERSON): The New York Times wrote last week about statistics that they believe, beyond all doubt, that they believe it proves that the biggest issue with crime in this country is not with criminals, it’s not murderers, it’s not even gun-free zones and soft targets. And it’s certainly not cultural. No, they believe that the biggest problem is legal firearm ownership. In fact, so many of these have — so many of these individuals have retweeted this, “An ever-growing body of research” — this is the New York Times article — “consistently reaches the same conclusion, the only variable that can explain the high rate of mass shootings in America is its astronomical number of guns.” Now the stats that they’re citing, that in the United States, which they say has 270 million firearms, there have been 90 “mass shootings,” — well, what they call mass shootings, which often aren’t mass shootings at all — they cite from between 1966 to 2012. And they further claim that among all countries with far fewer guns, there have been less of these mass shootings. Mass shooting is such a funny description anyways because we don’t call them mass knifings when they happen in the U.K., a country more than happy to have the kinds of laws that the New York Times editorial page apparently approves of, I don’t know. Suddenly it’s a murder spree or a mass casualty incident. But when a gun is involved, it’s called a mass shooting, and that’s so the focus remains on the firearm.
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