Fox News' Chris Wallace challenged National Rifle Association executive vice president Wayne LaPierre's false claims about strengthening gun laws, even going so far as to describe one of his talking points as “ridiculous.” Wallace's treatment of LaPierre is a departure from his Fox colleagues who have allowed LaPierre to push his agenda without challenge.

On Fox News Sunday, Wallace challenged LaPierre's attempt to mislead on criminal background checks for gun sales and debunked the NRA claim that the Obama administration wants to create a national registry of gun owners. Wallace also dismissed LaPierre's defense of an NRA advertisement that charged President Obama with hypocrisy for protecting his children with armed guards, responding to the NRA leader's comparison between threats faced by the president's children and school children nationwide by saying “that's ridiculous and you know it, sir.”

The refusal of Wallace to acquiesce to all of LaPierre's claims during Fox News Sunday was markedly different from Fox's typical treatment of the gun issue, which has included giving the NRA a platform to spread falsehoods.

During the interview, Wallace dismissed LaPierre's attempt to obfuscate the fact that over a million people have been stopped from obtaining a firearm since 1999 after failing a criminal background check by stating, “It worked enough that 1.7 million people were denied.”

LAPIERRE: I don't think you can say that those 1.7 million people have been stopped from getting a gun at all because the government didn't prosecute virtually any of them. They let them walk in, they were denied, they let them walk out. And who really thinks if they really wanted to commit a crime they didn't go on and get a gun.

WALLACE: I don't know. It seems to me if 1.7 million people were denied. I understand the hardened criminal. But the disturbed person. The Adam Lanza in Newtown. The James Holmes in Aurora, Colorado. Those aren't hardened criminals, and if they are stopped from getting a gun by a universal background check won't that make a difference?

LAPIERRE: You know the instant check was actually the NRA's proposal. We offered it as an amendment to the Brady Bill to put it on dealers. And I've been in this fight for 20 years, we supported it, we put it on the books. But I have finally become convinced after fighting to get the mental records computerized for 20 years and watching the mental health lobby, the HIPAA [Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act] laws, and the AMA [American Medical Association] oppose it, I don't think it's going to happen. I mean the fact is the check now, these people are not --

WALLACE: It worked enough that 1.7 million people were denied. I mean I completely agree with you, I mean as Captain Kelly pointed out [Tucson shooter] Jared Loughner was able to pass the test. So there are holes in it, but that doesn't mean, you know, because it's not perfect doesn't mean that it doesn't work.

As Wallace pointed out, there is a logical fallacy in LaPierre's argument that because background checks will not stop all criminals there is no value in attempts to improve the background check system.

LaPierre's attack on the effectiveness of the background check system also exposes the hypocrisy of the NRA's opposition to requiring criminal background checks on every gun sale. LaPierre speculated that individuals denied a firearm by a background check were still able to “go on and get a gun.” A loophole in federal law allows a significant proportion of firearms to be obtained through private sales where no background check is required, with one 2004 study indicating that criminals are even more likely to use private transactions to obtain firearms.

Wallace was equally skeptical of LaPierre's claim that an Obama administration proposal to require background checks on all gun sales would necessitate that the federal government create a registry of gun owners by noting that, “there is nothing that anyone in the administration has said that indicates they are going to have a universal registry.” 

LAPIERRE: I think what they'll do is they'll turn this universal check on the law-abiding into a universal registry of law-abiding people. And law-abiding people don't want that. I mean, my god, that's the last thing they want.

WALLACE: They absolutely do not. I mean, forgive me, sir, but you take something that is here and you say it is going to go all the way over there. There is no indication, I mean I can understand you're saying that's the threat. But there is nothing that anyone in the administration has said that indicates they are going to have a universal registry.

LaPierre's supposition about a gun registry is not borne out by how the federal background check system operates. The National Instant Criminal Background Check System is mandated by federal law to destroy identifying information about gun owners by the start of the next operating day.

Wallace also asked LaPierre if he regretted an ad run by his organization that called President Obama a hypocrite because his daughters are protected by armed security. After LaPierre argued that there is no difference between the threats faced by Obama's children and other children, Wallace rebuked him, stating, “That's ridiculous and you know it, sir.”