The Arizona senate candidate endorsed by former president Donald Trump has argued that America’s high rate of mass shootings is caused not by lax gun laws and easy accessibility of high-powered rifles, but by its Black population.
Former tech investor and Republican senate candidate Blake Masters made the shocking remarks — first reported by The Daily Beast — last month during an interview for the Jeff Oravits Show podcast.
Mr Masters told the programme presenter “we do have a gun violence problem in this country, and it’s gang violence” before leaning on the tired trope that gun violence is most frequently perpetrated by people in large cities with Democratic mayors “shooting at each other” rather than GOP-supporting gun owners.
“It’s … people in Chicago, St. Louis shooting each other. Very often, you know, Black people, frankly,” he said, adding that he believes “the Democrats don’t want to do anything about that”.
Continuing, the Republican senate candidate posited that the Biden administration’s limited efforts to crack down on untraceable “ghost guns” and “pistol braces” that allow handguns to be fired faster and more accurately are “all about disarming law-abiding people, like you and me”.
“They care that we can’t have guns to defend ourselves,” he said, though he offered no evidence to support his claim.
Mr Masters comments have resurfaced just four days after Mr Trump endorsed the 35-year-old ex-technology investor.
“Blake will fight for our totally under-siege Second Amendment, and WIN!” he wrote.
