On Friday’s The View, co-host Sunny Hostin claimed a rise in black gun ownership wasn’t a result of being concerned about spikes in violent crime, but because “white supremacy” and police made blacks feel “unsafe.”
The hosts were using their show to promote an ABC special on rising gun violence, this Sunday. After host Ana Navarro blamed the NRA and gun industry, Sunny Hostin claimed that the 2nd Amendment was actually racist because it was supposedly “designed to protect slavery.”
She also argued that rising gun ownership among African-Americans was because black Americans were actually fearful of racists and the police, rather than criminals. She claimed, “This is not about a rise in crime in the streets:”
[S]he describes that the constitutional -- the Second Amendment really was the right to bear arms was designed to protect slavery, right, because they wanted our founding fathers and others, they wanted to be able to empower a local militia group to basically put down a slave revolts and protect plantation owners, and so because of the origins of the Second Amendment many and because of the NRA, I think we're seeing this proliferation of guns and gun ownership but I will say that gun ownership is on the rise, of course, in this country, but the biggest gun ownership on the rise is among African-Americans. It's up 58.2% and in large part when they are questioned, they're talking about white supremacy, they're talking about the pandemic, and they’re talking about police violence. They want to be able to protect themselves. So this is not about a rise in crime in the streets. This is about people feeling unsafe. Black Americans.
Hostin may certainly be right about some black owners, but that fear is not backed up by facts, and can be directly tied to how the media sensationalizes police violence while largely ignoring violent crime in left-wing cities.
But fellow host Meghan McCain pushed back against Hostin dismissing rising crime. And she brought up real-life examples:
“Well, what makes me feel unsafe is rising crime,” she stated, citing Americans fleeing liberal states and cities for red states:
[Y]ou don't see people fleeing Arizona. In fact, Arizona is gaining a new congressional seat because so many from California want to come over to Arizona because of the different kind of laws. You aren't seeing people flooding to places like New York City, you're seeing them flood to places like Florida and Texas and that's because of the crime spikes and other things that happen post-pandemic…
Even Sara Haines, who generally sides with the more-liberal hosts, brought up how the media doesn’t give enough attention to the real victims of gun violence, and instead “hones in” on mass shootings:
But this is also always disproportionately affecting people of color. This statistic literally jumped off the page even before last year, gun violence was the leading cause of death for young black men claiming as many lives as the next nine causes combined. That's a scary thing because on this air we always -- the media often covers even as someone who consumes it the mass shootings. That's only 0.2% of the deaths in guns, which is a little shocking to me because we tend to hone in on the wrong part of this….
While Hostin and Navarro dismissing rising crime to blame racist “gun culture” was typical, it was refreshing to hear anyone but the token conservative host bring up facts the media ignores on gun violence.
Contact the View’s advertiser Dove at the Conservatives Fight Back page here.
Read relevant transcript below:
The View
7/23/21
SUNNY HOSTIN: [S]he describes that the constitutional -- the Second Amendment really was the right to bear arms was designed to protect slavery, right, because they wanted our founding fathers and others, they wanted to be able to empower a local militia group to basically put down a slave revolts and protect plantation owners, and so because of the origins of the Second Amendment many and because of the NRA, I think we're seeing this proliferation of guns and gun ownership but I will say that gun ownership is on the rise, of course, in this country, but the biggest gun ownership on the rise is among African-Americans. It's up 58.2% and in large part when they are questioned, they're talking about white supremacy, they're talking about the pandemic, and they’re talking about police violence. They want to be able to protect themselves. So this is not about a rise in crime in the streets. This is about people feeling unsafe. Black Americans.
...
MEGHAN MCCAIN: Well, what makes me feel unsafe is rising crime, so again I think it's pretty natural to want to feel safe when cities and, again, you can talk about, you know, different -- it's true. The statistics, excuse me, what was said about places like Mesa, Arizona obviously my home state are true but you don't see people fleeing Arizona. In fact, Arizona is gaining a new congressional seat because so many from California want to come over to Arizona because of the different kind of laws. You aren't seeing people flooding to places like New York City, you're seeing them flood to places like Florida and Texas and that's because of the crime spikes and other things that happen post-pandemic….
…
SARA HAINES: But this is also always disproportionately affecting people of color. This statistic literally jumped off the page even before last year, gun violence was the leading cause of death for young black men claiming as many lives as the next nine causes combined. That's a scary thing because on this air we always -- the media often covers even as someone who consumes it the mass shootings. That's only 0.2% of the deaths in guns, which is a little shocking to me because we tend to hone in on the wrong part of this.
…
I think we need to see more of what's here. This has been politicized. On one side I think on the heels of defund the police people want to hone in on crime being out of control, but I don’t always know on the other side if people want to see the statistics. We need to look at more information and more transparency to find the trends we can hone in on to fix this.
JOY BEHAR: Maybe we will see that on ‘One Nation Under Fire’ which is on ‘This Week With George Stephanopoulos’ this Sunday as a matter of fact on ABC. So be sure to watch that. Maybe the situation will become clearer to us.
