Jim Acosta Grills NRA Board Member On Why An 18 Year Old Should Be Able To Buy An AR-15

CNN’s Jim Acosta put NRA board member Judge Phillip Journey on the spot and wanted to know why an 18-year-old should be able to buy an AR-15.

Video:

Acosta asked, “Why do people need an AR-15 anyway?”

To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.

Journey answered, “You know, it’s just a semiautomatic rifle if you want to prejudiced about the way it looks. I was aware of what happened in the ’94 semiautomatic firearms ban, and there were rifles of a similar function that just didn’t look as ugly.”

Acosta tried again by asking how an 18-year-old can buy an AR-15 with 1,600 rounds of ammo like in Uvalde?

Journey said that he was able to buy it because he didn’t have any prior convictions.

Acosta asked what is an 18-year-old going to do with an AR-15?

Journey asked if an 18-year-old should have one in the Army?

Acosta pointed out that people are trained in the Army, and Journey went back to claiming that guns are a complicated issue.

Guns are not a complicated issue.

Every other country seems to have figured it out but the United States.

The NRA is all about muddying the waters because they don’t want the simple answer to be clear and obvious to all.

The best way to reduce mass shootings is to make it more difficult to get the tool that makes a mass shooting easy and accessible.

Jim Acosta tried, but NRA board member had no answers, talked in circles, and wasn’t interested in solving the problem.

In a nutshell, the exchange between Acosta and Journey showed that NRA is America’s mass shootings problem.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association