Rep. Wesley Hunt (R) defended private ownership of AR-15 rifles at the Republican National Convention Tuesday and warned that allowing Democrats to restrict them equates to “letting the fox into the henhouse.”
His comments came three days after a 20-year-old wound-be assassin attempted to take Donald Trump’s life. The suspect lost his life instead.
The would-be assassin used an AR-15 rifle, but even before that heinous action, AR-15s have been in the Democrat’s crosshairs.
USA Today quoted Hunt noting that any Democrat effort to ban AR-15s in light of the would-be assassin is nothing but a “trojan horse.”
He noted that AR-15s are used in only a fraction of the murders committed in the U.S. each year and said, “My message to you all is to be vigilant here… They cannot go after our AR-15s. The second we allow them to infringe on that, we are letting the fox in the henhouse.”
Hunt broadened his comments to address Democrat-backed gun control in general, noting that the left’s utopian vision of a gun-free world is not realistic and that law-abiding citizens need to arm themselves for self-defense: “The insinuation that we’re going to just eradicate this country of guns is a ridiculous one. So you better arm yourself accordingly.”
The most recent data from the National Shooting Sports Foundation indicates there are over 470 million firearms in circulation in the U.S.
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
