Mark Kelly on Monday reiterated that he never intended to keep the the AR-15 he bought last week, pushing back against claims by Breitbart.com that the husband of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) only announced that he was giving the assault weapon to local police because the conservative website was on the verge of running a story exposing the purchase.
On Friday, Kelly revealed on his Facebook page that he bought a used AR-15 at a Tucson, Ariz. gun store in an effort to illustrate the uninvasive nature of background checks. In the post, which included a picture of Kelly filling out a background check form, he said that he intended to submit the weapon to the Tucson police department. A story published Saturday by Breitbart suggested that the Facebook post appeared days after Kelly made the purchase. According to the report, Breitbart received a tip from pro-gun activist Neil McCabe regarding the purchase and was on the verge of breaking the news when Kelly’s Facebook post “suddenly” surfaced.
Appearing on CNN Monday, Kelly sought to rebut those claims while indicating that he’s not all that familiar with the conservative online empire, founded by the late right-wing firebrand Andrew Breitbart.
“Well, I don’t know anything about who Breitbart is or anything about his website,” Kelly told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. The leading gun control advocate then insisted that the purchase of the AR-15 and the timing of the subsequent Facebook post was all part of a plan.
“We had a plan to go in there to buy a .45 and if we had the opportunity to buy an AR-15 as well,” Kelly said. “And you know, I don’t know the timing but we had a plan on when we were going to announce that on Facebook.”
While he will give the AR-15 to local police, Kelly told Blitzer that he intends to hang on to the .45 caliber pistol. Breitbart’s report had made note of the fact that Kelly did not originally specify what he intended to do with the .45.
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