Fox News host Chris Wallace said on Sunday that he interviewed a fringe conservative gun lobbyist in order to balance the debate about gun law on the anniversary of the slaughter of 20 elementary school children in Newtown, Connecticut.
Wallace began his Sandy Hook anniversary segment by speaking to Mark Kelly, the husband of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ). Kelly is a gun owner who has called modest restrictions like background checks after his wife was critically injured by a mass shooter.
"Now, for the other side of the gun debate," Wallace announced. "Larry Pratt is executive director Gun Owners of America."
"We're not really going to able to talk about a victory until we get rid of the laws that prohibit people from having guns to protect themselves in schools and in other places," Pratt explained. "Every one of our mass murders in our country has occurred in places where guns were prohibited."
The gun lobbyist went on to say that even existing restriction had to be repealed because they were "lethal."
"It is killing people," he insisted. "All of these gun-free zones are murder magnets, and we've simply got to get rid of them. It's an illusion to think that somehow we're going to be safer because we can't have a gun in a particular area because the bad guy is going to have a gun."
Pratt asserted that opinion polls were wrong and that 90 percent of Americans did not favor background checks for guns.
"The problem is when are we going to stop good guys from having guns to protect themselves so that when of when of one of these dirt bags goes into a mall or a school, somebody is able to protect themselves and others by having their own gun," he said.
Wallace, however, failed to press Pratt on some of his more controversial statements.
Earlier this year, Pratt suggested to a tea party group that there were guns in the Bible and that God was "blessing" gun owners, while "judging" unarmed Americans.
He has also predicted that liberals didn't mind if liberals died if it meant more gun control, and that President Barack Obama's health care reform law could force gun owners to undergo electroshock therapy.
