FACT CHECK: Rep. Carolyn Maloney Falsely Claims Weapon Manufacturers ‘Selling Guns to Mass Murderers’

CLAIM: In opening comments during Wednesday’s House Committee on Oversight and Reform hearing, Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) claimed gun manufacturers “sell the weapons of choice to mass murderers.”

VERDICT: False. Gun makers do not sell guns to individuals. They sell guns to wholesalers/distributers who, in turn, sell them to federally licensed dealers, who, in turn, sell them to citizens who pass a federal background check.

In her opening comments, Maloney described the AR-15 as an “ultra-deadly weapon.” She mentioned that CEOs from Daniel Defense and Sturm, Ruger, & Co. would address the hearing and she said she hoped they would explain “why they continue to sell the weapons of choice to mass murderers.”

She referenced Daniel Defense specifically in saying, “Daniel Defense sold the ‘assault weapon’ that was used in Uvalde to murder 19 children.”

On July 18 Breitbart News noted that the Special Texas House Panel report showed the Uvalde shooter was driven by his uncle to a local gun store where he bought two rifles. One of those rifles was made by Daniel Defense, but it was not sold to him by Daniel Defense. It was sold to him by a federally licensed firearms store after he passed a National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) check, which is the federal background check.

The Associated Press reported that the Uvalde attacker “legally purchased two guns in the days before the attack that killed 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School — an AR-style rifle from a federally licensed gun dealer in the Uvalde area on May 17 and a second rifle on May 20.”

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. Reach him at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.