Mayor Booker: 'Legal Gun Buyers Aren't Causing Murders in Newark and Chicago and Other Places'

February 2nd, 2013 9:06 AM

Newark Mayor Cory Booker made a statement on HBO's Real Time Friday that should please gun rights advocates across the fruited plain.

Despite being for stronger gun laws, Booker said, "Legal gun buyers are not causing murders in Newark and Chicago and other places" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

CORY BOOKER, NEWARK MAYOR (D-N.J.): To me, the data should drive our decision making. So I know, I’m not afraid of people having guns who are law abiding citizens. In the analysis of gun murders and shootings in my city, I could only find one in the entire time I’ve been mayor – and unfortunately there have been hundreds and hundreds – where a person who was involved in a shooting where they had their gun legally, where they legally acquired their gun. The guns that are causing carnage in our cities, my city and our country, every single year are acquired illegally.

Minutes later, Booker put an exclamation point on this:

BOOKER: Newtowns are rare. What we see in America that doesn’t make the headlines, but there are young people being murdered every single day in communities like mine that don’t make the headlines…If I told you that the data shows that no legal gun buyer in Newark has been responsible for any of the shootings. If I tell you that right now, legal gun buyers are not causing murders in Newark and Chicago and other places.

Doesn't this mean that the gun rights advocates are correct and that the problem in this country isn't the lack of gun laws?

Maybe America's gun-hating media should take notice.