On Thursday's Velshi and Ruhle show, MSNBC hosts Ali Velshi and Stephanie Ruhle continued their anti-gun crusade with Velshi at one point taking almost three minutes to rattle off a list of studies alleging that gun ownership makes people more likely to die earlier.
In one case, he made a claim that is easily debunked as he implied that the U.S. has the world's highest suicide rate, blaming it on guns, when, in fact, a number of other countries with more restrictive gun laws have higher suicide rates than the U.S.
At 11:21 a.m. Eastern, co-host Ruhle read the NRA's response to President Donald Trump's comments supporting more gun control, in which the NRA indicated a desire to make American schools "safer." Velshi then jumped in to introduce his list of studies: "So that's just not what's true. The NRA keeps saying that more guns keep people more safe, and study after study empirically proves it's just not true."
He then made a simplistic straw man characterization of the NRA's views on how more gun ownership could protect Americans from crime. Here's Velshi: "A key point of the NRA's plans to make our schools and communities safe is simple: more guns."
As he went through a list of studies claiming a number of dire consequences of owning guns, he then got to a study on suicides: "Many -- most gun deaths in America are suicides. Nobody else in the world has numbers like American suicide deaths because of the number of guns we have."
In fact, a number of countries that have more restrictive gun laws than the U.S. have higher suicide rates. Japan, for example has a substantially higher rate, and guns are very difficult to acquire there.
Without citing any studies to the contrary, the MSNBC host concluded the segment: "All of the data shows that more guns do not mean more safety."
On yesterday's show, Velshi admitted that he had considered boycotting Amazon because it supports NRA TV, and lamented that it is difficult for consumers to avoid businesses that benefit the gun industry.
