Anti-Gun CNN Host Gets Embarrassed On-Air For Citing False Gun Facts [VIDEO]

“Well, what you failed to point out, Carol, is that the Center for Disease Control also–pursuant to President Obama issuing a decree to have them study this issue–they found that anywhere from 500,000 to three million times a year, guns are being used in self-defense. So that means for every negative tragic use of a firearm…” Erich Pratt said.

Anti-Gun CNN Host Gets Embarrassed On-Air For Citing False Gun Facts [VIDEO]

CNN host Carol Costello ended up being pretty embarrassed on her gun control knowledge by Gun Owners of America Executive Director Erich Pratt during an interview segment last week.

Costello told Pratt that 33,000 people die each year from firearms. Costello asked Pratt, “Isn’t that too many?” However, Pratt quickly turned the tables on that statistic and presented one of his own.

While that number is technically correct, it is somewhat deceiving since over 2/3 of those are suicides, and many of those numbers are driven by a disturbingly high suicide rate among Afghanistan and Iraq war veterans. While still extremely unfortunate, suicide and homicide are generally treated very differently in policy making and public perception.

Pratt also pointed out that firearms are used hundreds of thousands of times per year in a defensive manner to stop crimes. In an overwhelming number of these cases shots are never even fired by the gun owner and even when they are, the suspect is rarely killed.

“Well, what you failed to point out, Carol, is that the Center for Disease Control also–pursuant to President Obama issuing a decree to have them study this issue–they found that anywhere from 500,000 to three million times a year, guns are being used in self-defense. So that means for every negative tragic use of a firearm…”

Costello then interrupted Pratt and said that can’t be true because the NRA won’t the Center for Disease Control study guns. However, Costello was shown to be off the mark yet again.

There was, in fact a 2013 Center for Disease Control study on firearms ordered by the Obama Administration and it made some very surprising (for some people) claims. First off, the study correctly pointed out that violent crime, including homicide, is on the decline in recent years and is, in fact, near record lows.

The study also correctly pointed out that an overwhelming number of firearms deaths are suicides (as we previously mentioned). It also pointed out that mass shootings, despite their press coverage, are statistically so small of a percentage of deaths in the United States that it is almost not worth worrying about. Some of the rarest diseases in the world kill more people each year in the US than mass murderers.

The study also covered self defense. According to a Slate (who normally leans anti-gun) article on the report, the findings on the self defense usage of firearms is staggering:

“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 … in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008,” says the report.”

It is a bit disconcerting that a supposed news network, who is supposed to be unbiased, is showing such an obvious bias in this case. It is even more disturbing that a host on that network would flat out deceive viewers either on purpose, or through ignorance. Whatever the reason, it’s not good.

Here is the full video interview: