Fox News host and Daily Caller editor-in-chief Tucker Carlson claimed that the government “wants to know” if people have firearms in their houses “because they'd like to disarm you,” echoing a common conspiracy theory from gun lobby extremists.

On the August 10 edition of Fox & Friends Sunday, co-host Heather Nauert reported on a mother's effort to lobby the New York state legislature to pass a bill requiring the safe storage of guns in homes, after her son was killed in an accidental shooting at a friend's house. Nauert asked viewers, “when your child goes to another family's house, do you ever think to ask if they have a gun?”

After the report, Carlson said he would be “offended” if a parent asked him about firearms in his home. “If somebody asked me -- the idea that 93 percent of people don't mind if you ask them if they have a firearm at home -- I find that a very private question,” said Carlson. “It's something that government wants to know because they'd like to disarm you. But I -- it's something that I'm not comfortable talking about with other people, and I would be offended by that question.”

The National Rifle Association frequently -- and falsely -- claims that the government is collecting information about privately-owned firearms in order to confiscate them at a later time. A recent commentary video from the gun group baselessly claimed that “the government is collecting more and more gun registration data which could be used against gun owners in the form of full confiscation,” and the NRA's president Jim Porter has claimed that the Obama administration is using Medicare enrollment forms to create a national gun registry even though no questions about guns appear on the form. 

Carlson also criticized Nauert's report for suggesting that “guns are scary, gun owners are a threat to you and your children.” He said that “far more children died last year drowning in their bathtubs than were killed accidentally by guns” and stated that he “would like to see a package on, do you have a bathtub at home? Because I need to know that before I send my child over to your house.”

Carlson also claimed that “the places with the highest levels of gun ownership” are “the safest places,” citing Maine, Wyoming, and Vermont as states where “you're not going to get hurt.” In fact, as the Huffington Post noted, a Violence Policy Center study that reviewed 2011 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that “States with weak gun-control laws and higher rates of gun ownership tend to have higher rates of gun deaths, while states with stronger policies and fewer gun owners have significantly lower rates of gun-related deaths.” Wyoming had the fourth highest rate of gun deaths in the study.

From Fox & Friends Sunday:

(h/t Raw Story)