During the January 3, 2017, airing of Tucker Carlson Tonight, Carlson brought up Chicago gun crime and asked the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence’s Joshua Horowitz how he can continue to push gun control in light of such a glaring gun control failure.

Tucker said:

I’ve been told since I was child that the reason there are so many murders in places like Detroit and Chicago is because there are not enough gun laws or they are going across state lines to buy guns. If that’s true–if more guns concentrated results in more killings–then why do the states with the loosest gun laws have the lowest murder rates?

Tucker pointed to “Vermont, Wyoming, Maine, and Idaho,” but Horowitz interjected to say “that’s not true” based on the fact that there are higher murder rates in some states with looser gun laws. Horowitz was pointing to exceptions to the rule and attempting to use those exceptions to overturn the rule when Tucker replied, “I’m not arguing that there is a direct correlation between looser gun laws and lower murder rates. I’m merely arguing that gun control doesn’t make us safer.”

Tucker said gun control’s impotency is “pretty obvious” based on the homicide numbers in Chicago during 2016 and he asked Horowitz how can he continue to push gun control in light of the Chicago failure. Horowitz gave a convoluted answer full of little bits of information that he finally tied together by saying, “We really believe the evidence is showing that, in fact, a group of gun violence prevention laws, in fact, do lower the homicide rate.”

A quick aside–On January 2, 2017, Breitbart News reported:

Chicago has played host to decades of gun control experiments, including an all-out handgun ban from 1982-2010. Yet 2016 witnessed 779 homicides in the city, and over 9 out of 10 of those were firearm-related. And even after the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit struck down Illinois’ ban on concealed carry in December 2012, city leaders fought to make implementation of concealed carry as difficult as possible. For example, on September 15, 2013, American Thinker reported that Mayor Rahm Emanuel was fighting to block off sections of the city where concealed carry permit holders would be barred from carrying guns for self-defense. These and other gun controls ultimately do one thing–they make it difficult for law-abiding citizens to acquire and carry the guns they need for self-defense, while doing nothing to curtail the behavior of criminals, who will always acquire and carry the guns they use in crime. Fast-forward to 2016 and Chicago’s gun-control legacy–779 homicides, more than 9 out of 10 of which were committed with a firearm.

Now the handgun ban, the ban on concealed carry, and the fight against allowing freedom of movement for concealed carriers were all part of a group of laws that Democrats in Chicago trusted to the lower the homicide rate. Instead, the homicide rate rose. In fact, it surged, and this is evident to everyone except those who do not want to see it. Therefore, after Horowitz re-espoused his belief that “a group of gun violence prevention laws…do lower the homicide rate,” Tucker pointed to the thousands of shootings in Chicago last year–and the nearly 800 homicides–and said, “What gun laws would have prevented that?”

Horowitz responded by blaming Chicago gun crime on guns “from other states.” He named “Wisconsin, Mississippi, and Indiana” as states that are flooding Chicago with guns and said the solution is to expand universal background checks to all states.

Tucker said, “I’ve heard this argument but, New York City has seen a dramatic drop in gun crime, right?”

Horowitz said, “Right, and they have great gun laws.”

Tucker then pounced, “But it’s right south of Vermont, which has the laxest gun laws in America. You can get in a car and drive up there. So why isn’t that the same?”

Horowitz exact response: “Well, well, cause, first of all, New York, New York, it’s the same thing as Illinois where, where the crime guns are coming from out of state–but New York lives in a much safer neighborhood, right, you have to go quite some distance to get a firearm.”

Tucker said, “Really? Cause everyone I know in New York has a weekend home in Vermont.”

AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of “Bullets with AWR Hawkins,” a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.