The Arkansas Advocate, part of the States Newsroom news group, criticized Arkansas concealed carry laws for being the “weakest” following the Friday attack on a grocer in which the assailant used a shotgun.
Breitbart News reported the attack in which 13 were shot and three of the shooting victims initially succumbed to their wounds. A fourth person, wounded in the attack, died as a result of their wounds after being at the hospital.
Cell phone video from the incident appeared to show the attacker standing in the parking lot with a pump shotgun in his hands. Then the New York Times confirmed that law enforcement sources indicated the attacker had indeed used a shotgun.
Additionally, Matthew Gill works at the grocery the attacker targeted and he told CNN “a man came into the store with a shotgun and ended up in a shootout with police.”
States Newsroom’s Arkansas Advocate covered the shooting by criticizing the fact Arkansas has constitutional carry. In other words, Arkansas requires no permit for carrying a handgun on one’s person for self-defense.
The Advocate did not explain what laws pertaining to hand guns have to do with an attacker carrying a shotgun to kill people in cold blood.
Moreover, the outlet did not mention that Arkansas’ concealed carry laws mean people, like those at grocer, can more easily be armed to defend themselves should the scenario occur again.
But the Advocate did quote Mike Bloomberg-affiliated Everytown for Gun Safety, noting, “According to Everytown, Arkansas has the 9th-highest rate of gun deaths in the US. In an average year, 638 people die by guns and another 1,247 people are wounded in Arkansas.”
Neither the Advocate nor Everytown noted Arkansas’ average of 638 gun deaths annually is roughly two thirds less than the annual number of gun deaths in California, the state with more gun control than any other state.
KRON4 pointed to data gathered by the Hope and Heal Fund and Romo GIS Enterprise showing California had approximately 1,800 gun deaths in 2021 and 1,700 in 2022.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio, a member of Gun Owners of America, and the director of global marketing for Lone Star Hunts. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010 and has a Ph.D. in Military History. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at
