Ted Nugent Goes Off on Piers Morgan During Fiery Gun Debate

Credit: AP

Rock legend Ted Nugent sat down with CNN’s Piers Morgan in a Texas gun shop on Monday to talk, well, guns. Nugent blasted Morgan over his apparent “obsession with guns” and told him to leave responsible American gun owners “the hell alone.”

Morgan began the interview by asking his guest to explain to him, “in the least inflammatory way possible,” why any American needs to own an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. Morgan had just gotten done shooting an AR-15 at a gun range and said he was surprised by the power it possessed.

After first offering prayers to the Chris Kyle and Littlefield families, Nugent told Morgan to “take it to the bank” that he would never understand the true purpose of firearms.

“You don’t understand that it’s a simple inanimate tool that tens of millions of American families own that have never caused a problem, never had an accident and will never commit a crime,” Nugent said.

Morgan countered by saying 100,000 Americans get hit by gunfire each year.

“Let me stop you there, because I’ve been hearing you say this and you’re so full of crap. Listen to me, that statistic includes bad guys shot by cops and intruders shot by homeowners. So that figure is bogus,” Nugent shot back.

Then Morgan explained that 18,000 people commit suicide using a gun every year in the U.S., to which Nugent quickly replied: “Japan has a higher suicide rate and they aren’t allowed to get downwind of a gun. You’re turn.”

“Do you care about murders?” Nugent pressed. “Or do you only care about about murders with guns?”

“I care about all death,” Morgan replied.

“I don’t think you do. I think you care about guns. I think You’re obsessed with guns,” Nugent said, before going off on a fiery diatribe defending gun owners in America.

“99.99% of the gun owners of America are wonderful people that you are hanging around with here today. Perfectly safe. Perfectly harmless. Wonderful, loving, giving, generous caring people. Would you leave us the hell alone? Go after the nut jobs, go after the murderers, because I don’t know any. We need to lock up the bad guys and when people show dangerous, murderous intent, which everyone one of these mass murderers showed. All their neighbors, their family, their teachers, their fellow students, they all knew they were crazy but, Piers, we didn’t stop them because we’re worried about hurting their feelings. We have a mad man problem in America…”

Watch the entire segment via Mediaite/CNN below:

Completely unmoved by his remarks, Morgan said “I won’t leave you alone because this is a debate that needs to be had.”

Nugent went on to call Morgan the “perfect poster boy” to stand up for the “things that make no sense at all to common sense people.”

Nugent also blasted President Barack Obama’s proposals on gun control, saying he doesn’t agree with the president on any of his gun control plans.

He also said he didn’t agree with universal background checks and argued that more guns equals less violence. He counted off several places with the strictest gun laws and sky high violent crime, including Chicago and Mexico.

 

(H/T: Matt Wilstein, Mediaite)

Featured image via AP