New York Attorney General Letitia James’ lawsuit against the National Rifle Association (NRA) is an “electorally based attack” meant to distract from New York City‘s rise in violent crime, City Journal associate editor Seth Barron told “Tucker Carlson Tonight” Thursday.
“This is a typical diversion attempt to blame the shootings on someone other than the bad ideas of Mayor Bill de Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo and the Democrat Party in the last few months,” Barron told host Tucker Carlson.
James’ lawsuit accused the NRA of having “a culture of self-dealing,” taking millions of dollars for personal use and granting contracts that benefited leaders’ family and associates.
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Host Tucker Carlson theorized that James was targeting the NRA because of their support of President Trump, saying the organization “has, for decades, been the single most effective get-out-the-vote-late campaign operation the Republicans have.
“And this year, they were planning apparently to spend up to $70 million helping Republicans,” Carlson added. “Now they won’t. Why? Because they’ve been sued, so defensively, they will probably hold back a lot of that money for their legal defense.
“So if you wanted to short-circuit Republicans in November’s election, you would go after the NRA and that’s exactly what they’ve done.”
Barron emphasized that Democratic leaders in New York are attempting to deflect deserved criticism away from them and onto the gun rights group.
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“They’ve let thousands of people out of jail. They’ve changed the law so basically no one gets remanded on bail,” he said. “They’ve essentially sat on the police and made it impossible for them to do their jobs effectively. And as a result, gangs are involved in just this spate of violence all over Brooklyn, the Bronx, upper Manhattan and shootings are up by 200 percent in New York City.
“Whenever this happens in Chicago or D.C. or New York, the local leaders blame the NRA and responsible gun owners,” Barron added. “And they say, ‘Oh, there’s an iron pipeline of guns coming into our cities,’ but magically they only go off when they get into the cities.”
Fox News’ Ronn Blitzer contributed to this report.