Blake Masters, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Arizona, who was recently endorsed by former President Donald Trump, said on a podcast this year that Black people are to blame for America's gun violence problem.
Masters said on The Jeff Oravits Show in April that there is a gun violence problem in this country. You know, Black people are very often. Masters claimed that Democrats are weak on crime and don't like the Second Amendment because it blocks a lot of their plans for us. When asked what he thought about President Joe Biden's Supreme Court nominee Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman confirmed to the court, Masters said she was a horrible pick and that she was an affirmative action candidate. Masters has promoted Donald Trump's false claims that the election was stolen in 2020. He has repeatedly echoed the great replacement theory - a white supremacist conspiracy theory that there is a plot to diminish the influence of white people in the U.S. — by baselessly claiming that Democrats want to grant amnesty to thousands of immigrants in order to make them voters. Last month a white, 18-year-old gunman who was believed to have subscribed to the great replacement theory opened fire at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, killing 10 people and injuring three, almost all of them Black, authorities said. The incident was described as a racially motivated hate crime.
Less than two weeks later, a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers and injured more than a dozen others at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
When questioned about whether stricter gun laws would prevent mass shootings, a number of Republicans singled out large cities.
At a news conference about the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott pointed out that Chicago is an example of gun laws that don't prevent gun violence.
The people who think that if we could just implement tougher gun laws, it's going to solve it, and Chicago and L.A. and New York disprove that thesis, Abbott said at a May 25 news conference.
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot both condemned his remarks.
Pritzker tweeted about a report that a majority of guns used in Chicago crimes came from outside Illinois. Don't feed into the false narrative about Chicago and Illinois - it's an excuse that politicians like you hide behind to stop the federal legislation that keeps guns out of the hands of dangerous people. You are lying about Chicago and what perpetuates gun violence. Pritzker said that the majority of guns used in Chicago shootings come from states with lax gun laws.