Cross posted to the MRC's NewsBusters blog
On Saturday morning, MSNBC again showed itself to be the place for misinformation as host Ali Velshi joined Democratic Congressman Jim Clyburn in repeating misinformation to promote stricter gun laws.
Velshi not only cued up Clyburn to repeated discredited claims that a 10-day waiting period could have stopped mass murderer Dylan Roof from getting a gun, but the MSNBC host also wrongly claimed that most mass shootings are committed using so-called "assault weapons."
Setting up is guest, Velshi recalled:
I want to remind people of something called the Charleston loophole. ... it was this idea that, when you go to buy a gun, the system basically has three days to approve you. If it doesn't do it in the three days for any reason -- if you don't get a denial within three days, but you don't get an approval -- you can just buy the gun anyway.
The Democratic congressman recalled the horrific murder of black church members in his home stat of South Carolina in 2015, and then suggested that, if the background check had been allowed to take longer than three days, the gunman, Dylann Roof, could have been denied a gun he was trying to purchase:
Well, the investigation revealed that he got the gun in three days, though they discovered some information was wrong. The question is, did he give the wrong information intentionally? Or did somebody miscue something? So at the end of the three days, he went back -- he got the gun. What we're saying to try to close this loophole -- give the investigators time to do their work. It is determined that 90 percent of all gun purchases are approved within seconds. but another 97 percent within the three-day period. Three percent fall outside of that three-day period.
Without citing any source, Congressman Clyburn then claimed that most of those whose background checks are not completed within the three-day limited period are given guns they should not have been given, and then go on to commit crimes:
And what we have found is that, in that three percent, a lot of people -- the vast majority of that three percent are people who get the guns who do not deserve to have them -- who are not qualified to have them -- and many of them go out and commit murders like this gentleman did in Charleston. So we're trying to close that -- put in something that gives us 10 days in which to do the work.
But fact checkers on both the left and right have disputed the claim that Roof could have been legally prevented from buying a gun with a longer background check.
Later in the segment, Clyburn claimed that no one every needs to acquire a gun within three days in spite of documented examples of people being murdered while waiting for a background check to complete. Here's Clyburn: "Why is it so important to get a gun in three days? What's wrong with 10 days? We wait 30 days to get something in the mail when we order it. There's nothing about having a gun within 10 days that is so important."
Velshi soon claimed "assault weapons" -- referring to certain types of semi-automatic rifles -- are used in most cases of mass killings, even though Newsweek recently claimed that most are not.
This latest fact-challenged episode of MSNBC's Velshi show was sponsored in part by Subway. Their contact information is linked.
Transcript follows:
MSNBC
Velshi
April 10, 2021
8:05 a.m. Eastern
ALI VELSHI: I want to remind people of something called the Charleston loophole. It existed long before the Charleston shooting, but it was this idea that, when you go to buy a gun, the system basically has three days to approve you. If it doesn't do it in the three days for any reason -- if you don't get a denial within three days, but you don't get an approval -- you can just buy the gun anyway.
JIM CLYBURN, HOUSE MAJORITY WHIP: That's correct. And that's a big, big problem. In the case of Charleston -- and we nicknamed it, that loophole, the "Charleston loophole," because the Charleston situation at Emanuel AME Church, nine poor souls, worshiping, doing their Bible studies, welcoming a stranger into their midst -- and that's what the Bible tells us we are to be all about as Christians. They welcomed this gentleman in -- he sat there, studied for an hour, and then, when they closed their eyes to say the closing prayer, he murdered nine of them trying to start a race war.
Well, the investigation revealed that he got the gun in three days, though they discovered some information was wrong. The question is, did he give the wrong information intentionally? Or did somebody miscue something? So at the end of the three days, he went back -- he got the gun. What we're saying to try to close this loophole -- give the investigators time to do their work. It is determined that 90 percent of all gun purchases are approved within seconds. but another 97 percent within the three-day period. Three percent fall outside of that three-day period.
And what we have found is that, in that three percent, a lot of people -- the vast majority of that three percent are people who get the guns who do not deserve to have them -- who are not qualified to have them -- and many of them go out and commit murders like this gentleman did in Charleston. So we're trying to close that -- put in something that gives us 10 days in which to do the work.
VELSHI: This is called the Enhanced Background Checks Act. Enhanced background checks -- strengthening background checks has the support of an overwhelming number of Americans -- red flag laws are something that are popular. Where Democrats run into a wall is on anything to do with so-called assault weapons, although most of our mass shootings are committed using assault weapons.
(...)
REP. CLYBURN: Why is it so important to get a gun in three days? What's wrong with 10 days? We wait 30 days to get something in the mail when we order it. There's nothing about having a gun within 10 days that is so important.