Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones brandished an assault weapon and criticized a gun safety PSA as a “full out assault on the basic underpinnings of this country” during a recent broadcast.
On March 11, in conjunction with comedy website Funny or Die, gun safety group Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence launched a parody video in which two actors playing criminals facetiously advised other criminals to visit CrimAdvisor.com -- a play on TripAdvisor -- to learn which states have the weakest gun laws making it easy for criminals to get guns.
CrimAdvisor.com has information on which states have laws making it easier or harder for felons and other dangerous individuals to obtain firearms and also lists the top source states for illegally trafficked firearms. The website asks supporters to sign a petition in support of expanding background checks to all gun sales, noting that, “Brady background checks have stopped 2.4 million gun sales to prohibited purchasers, but only 60% of current gun sales include a background check.”
Jones, however, saw the pitch for more background checks -- a measure overwhelmingly popular with the American public -- as a piece of “propaganda” that is part of an effort by globalists to enslave Americans.
As Jones explained during a March 13 broadcast that centered on Brady's video, “We need good people with guns and we need the bad people to be scared of it. But the ruling political class that is out of control wants us disarmed, because slaves are disarmed, it's that simple.”
Jones viewed Brady's parody video as part of that effort, describing it as a “full out assault on the basic underpinnings of this country.” He even argued that the video was actually made “in the hopes that criminals could get guns,” by telling “lazy, stupid criminals ways to try to get around other states' laws.”
Then during the crescendo of his rant about the Brady video and gun safety efforts generally, Jones pulled an AK-47-style assault pistol from under his desk. While continued to hold a gun in his hand, Jones added, “We're not going to roll over and die to tyrants like Hitler, Stalin, and Mao, and their fellow travelers today. We understand that slaves are disarmed. We understand that free men will never turn in their firearms”:
JONES: There is a revolution taking place in the Second Amendment right now. A lot of liberals are waking up to this and becoming real liberals who believe in human empowerment. A lot of women are becoming real feminists and going out and learning how to protect themselves. So-called liberals would never want their daughters or sons to know how to protect themselves and just lay down and be raped. Homeland Security and others tell women to vomit or pee on people that are busting into their houses. This is insanity. We're not afraid here at InfoWars.com, even though we have been threatened by criminals, and ISIS, and others, and death threats against this organization have been in the national news because we're ready to defend ourselves. We're not going to roll over and die to tyrants like Hitler, Stalin, and Mao, and their fellow travelers today. We understand that slaves are disarmed. We understand that free men will never turn in their firearms.
Brady's CrimAdvisor video was also the recipient of baseless criticism from conservative websites Washington Free Beacon and Townhall, which both argued that Brady's claims about states with weak guns laws were meritless because it is illegal for felons to carry guns in all states. This criticism, however, ignores 20 years of data from the national background check system that proves background checks make it harder for felons to obtain guns.
Jones' broadcast: