Former NYC Mayoral Candidate Actually Compares Gun Owners to Convicted Sex Offenders

Author Mark Green Credit: Getty Images

Appearing on MSNBC's "Hardball" on Thursday, former New York City mayoral candidate and author Mark Green advocated for new legislation that would allow people to identify and locate gun owners who lived in their neighborhoods. He compared it to the already existing "Megan's Law," which lets citizens know if a convicted sex offender lives near them.

Then he flat-out compared sex offenders to gun owners.

“If we have a Megan’s Law -- because I think almost everyone might agree -- that if you’re a convicted child molester, a neighbor might want to know that because they’re in your home, safe, but maybe they could hurt someone else,” Green said, adding “Same thing with guns."

“There may be people who think the more concealed weapons, the better. Fine. Live in Texas or Florida,” he said.

Green was reacting to the Journal News' decision to publish the names and addresses of pistol permit holders in two New York counties. The obvious flaw in Green's argument is that legal gun owners are not criminals and therefore no reasonable rationale exists to place gun owners on some sort of database similar to that of a sex offender registry.

Even Michael Smerconish, Chris Matthews' fill-in host, disagreed with Green's assessment and said he was not comparing lawful gun owners with convicted child molesters in any way.

However, Smerconish did agree that gun owner information should be publicly available. Putnam County, N.Y., Executive Maryellen Odell disagreed and said releasing lawful gun owners' information was an invasion of privacy.

Watch the clip via MSNBC below:

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