Weeks after massacres in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas, Fox News host Greg Gutfeld falsely claimed that nobody with a concealed carry permit had ever committed a mass shooting.
The comment came as Gutfeld and the co-hosts of "The Five" discussed the Supreme Court’s ruling striking down a New York law that put limits on carrying a concealed firearm in public.
"I think about mass shooters," Gutfeld said June 23. "I don't believe — and someone correct me later, I won't listen — but I don't believe anybody with a concealed carry permit ever committed a mass shooting. So I think the ban itself had no role in preventing these things, right?"
Here’s the correction Gutfeld asked for: His claim is wrong.
Concealed carry laws, which are on the books in about half the states, are laws that require a permit to carry a firearm in public. Jaclyn Schildkraut, who researches mass shootings as an associate professor of criminal justice at the State University of New York at Oswego, said there is no national registry of concealed carry permits across those states.
But a "two-second Google search" shows Gutfeld’s claim is "inaccurate," Schildkraut said.
"Absolutely, wholly inaccurate," added Kristen Rand, government affairs director for the nonprofit Violence Policy Center, which tracks such cases as part of its focus on reducing gun violence.
Citing news reports that indicate when a mass shooter had a concealed carry permit — including articles from Fox News’s own website — the...
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