WATCH: The View blames latest shootings on guns and ‘white men’ being radicalized
Heather Hunter
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The View hosts said Friday that the latest string of random shootings involving shooters who were white, Hispanic, and black was about the “major problem” of guns and “white men.”
During a segment on The View, the show aired a montage of news reports about random shootings. The stories detailed a man who fatally shot 20-year-old Kaylin Gillis after her car turned into the wrong driveway, two Texas teenage cheerleaders being shot after mistaking the suspect’s vehicle for their own in a supermarket parking lot, and a North Carolina man allegedly shooting a 6-year-old girl, her parents, and a neighbor after a basketball rolled into his yard.
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“We’ve said it over and over again that guns are the major problem here,” Joy Behar said.
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Behar contrasted gun violence in Italy and America, saying she never worries about guns while walking around in Rome.
“In this country, it is a whole other ball of wax. So what is going on, and why are these people shooting first before they even know why somebody mistakenly went into their driveway?” she asked The View panel of co-hosts.
“I honestly think certainly we know that America is the only country in the world that has more guns than people, and those guns are owned by about 3% of the population,” co-host Sunny Hostin said.
Hostin added, “And largely they’re men, and they’re largely white men. And I think what you are seeing happening is that people are being radicalized by Fox News. They’re being radicalized by other right-wing media and being taught to fear people that don’t look like them.”
To make her point, Hostin explained the recent incident about an elderly white man shooting a black teenager who rang his doorbell.
The View aired a CNN news clip of 84-year-old Andrew Lester’s grandson Klint Ludwig suggesting his relative was racist for shooting Ralph Yarl.
“I feel like a lot of people of that generation are caught up in this 24-hour news cycle of fear and paranoia, perpetuated by some other news stations, and he was fully into that,” Ludwig said. “Watched Fox News all day, every day blaring in his living room. I think that stuff reinforces this native view of minority groups and leaves people to be — doesn’t necessarily lead people to be racist but reinforces and galvanizes racist people.”
Hostin responded that the elderly man’s grandson “obviously loves him.”
Co-host Sara Haines interjected to point out that the shooters being discussed in the various shooting incidents involved a black man, a Hispanic man, and two white men after Hostin suggested all of the shootings had to do with white men.
“This is definitely a male problem. It is a gun problem. I think looping them all together, you’ve got to take gun problems in lanes. There are criminal guns that are illegally obtained, there are legally attained weapons that are most common in, honestly, school shootings, then you have the Second Amendment; you have so many things, you can’t look at it as one problem, or you’ll never get to a solution,” Haines said.
After describing all the recent shootings as “a male problem,” Haines did not mention the female shooter in the recent Tennessee school shooting.
“I think in this instance, the instinct to shoot first is a really complicated problem with a lot of different branches,” she remarked.
Haines attributed part of the gun violence problem to social media erasing humanity and empathy from people. She also suggested adult entertainment, video games, and the collapse of morality in the church had their share of the blame.
Co-host Ana Navarro said some of the most “hateful” social media users have “Christian” in their Twitter bio.
Alyssa Farah Griffin argued that at least one factor in these shootings was politicians “making us hate people we disagree with.”
“I think we’re a society that’s riddled by fear and division,” she said. “I think our politicians are making us hate people we disagree with ideologically, rather than saying you’re allowed to disagree, but we both are supposed to co-exist in a democracy,” she said.
Griffin continued, “And finally, social media is radicalizing people. It removes the human element, it makes you hateful toward people around you and easier to say and do things you wouldn’t.”
Navarro closed the segment by concluding that these incidents were about division and hatred, which should be addressed at the ballot box.
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“We have to remember this come election time. And take this outrage — we have to vote for people who unify us, who are not using attacks on black people and on immigrants and on gay people and on transgender people as a way to get votes,” she rallied the audience.
Behar called on the audience to “look up” which politicians received money from the National Rifle Association and to not vote for them.