Joy Behar, co-host of ‘The View’ has claimed that voting rights are being taken away from African Americans. She made this claim during an episode celebrating Juneteenth and provided no evidence to back up her bold claim.
Watch the video below to see her in action:
Joy Behar said: “We should be aware on a day like this that voting rights are being systematically taken away from African Americans and other people too in this country… It’s a good day to reflect on that, I think.”
However, Behar’s comment lacked any evidence or information to back it up. She did not voice concerns over any particular politics, bills, or anything that would indicate anyone has lost the right to vote.
Co-host Whoopi Goldberg and Sunny Hostin also chirped about things, suggesting that America is “challenging” and that Americans are seeing a “rollback of history.”
Hostin also brought up Critical Race Theory (CRT) in her commentary, saying: “be very vigilant when you’re hearing about [critical race theory], alleged CRT in your schools. Fight that… You have to make sure that past does not become prologue.”
Joy Behar, during a different episode, made another comment that mentioned African Americans and guns, and she took heavy amounts of backlash for it.
Gun control laws will only be changing in the United States “once black people start getting guns,” said Behar during a recent episode of the show. She faced backlash quickly.
Behar was addressing a direct response to an anecdote shared by guest host Lindsey Granger about a black man in Connecticut who she claimed built his own AR-15 assault rifle because the law in the state doesn’t allow him to buy such a weapon. She argued that it was “odd” that he was black, adding that “most AR-15 owners are ex-military, over the age of 35 and married.”
Behar then intervened, interrupting Granger. “Here’s the thing: once Black people get guns in this country, the gun laws will change. Trust me,” Behar said.
The co-host was presumably alluding to the facts of 1967, when a state bill banning the open carry of loaded firearms with no permit, the Mulford Act, was adopted in California. It was considered by many as an attempt to limit the power of the Black Panther activist group, which routinely conducted armed patrols at the time.
The latest data provided by the National Firearms Survey and released in July 2021 shows that gun ownership is demographically quite diverse, with 25.4 percent of guns owned by blacks, 28.3 percent by Hispanics, 19.4 percent by Asians, and the majority, 34.3%, were owned by whites.
Another survey from the same year by the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) investigating gun ownership in the country found that at least 5.4 million people purchased a gun for the first time in 2021.
About 44% of retailers reported seeing an increase in the number of black people buying guns that year, adding to what the NSSF reported was already a 58% increase in gun ownership among African Americans from 2019 to 2020, per reports.
The top reason people bought a gun for the first time in 2020 and 2021 was, according to the National Firearms Survey and NSSF, self-defense. The reports revealed that there was a correlation between the increase in Black gun ownership and anti-Black violent incidents, including the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery.
The latest available data from the FBI’s Crime Data Explorer indicates that anti-black crimes were the most prevalent among hate crimes compared to other hate crimes such as anti-white, anti-Jewish, anti-gay and anti-Latino crimes, with 2,871 anti-black hate crimes in the entire year.
On the other hand, black Democrats were also found to be more likely than white and Hispanic Democrats to agree that gun violence is a big problem in America. According to a Pew Research Institute survey, 82% of black adults said gun violence is a very big problem, by far the largest share of any racial or ethnic group.
By comparison, 58% of Hispanic adults and 39% of white adults see gun violence the same way. 73% of Democrats view gun violence as a major problem as opposed to just over 18% of Republicans who agree with that view (73% versus 18%).
Photo: screencap YouTube video.