Texas attorney general to New York gun owners: 'Come to the state of Texas'

NRA news host Cam Edwards interviewed Texas Attorney General Greg Abbot, who a few days ago invited New Yorkers angry with the state's new gun control law to head down south.

Abbot said that while both New York's Gov. Cuomo and President Obama want to crack down on a "fundamental" right, "we wanted to send an invitation to the folks up in New York. Are they tired of their governor taking away their Second Amendment rights? Are they tired of being overtaxed, are they tired of not having an economy that will create jobs? Well, we've got a state right for them."

"If you are a legal gun owner in New York, and don't want to have your location put up on the website, come to the state of Texas. You know, we have our own website," he went on, "that has listed the location of all gun owners in the state of Texas, and it's represented by a red dot, and if you look at our state map, you see the entire state is all red."

"I think most people realize this is a little tongue-in-cheek jab at the governor up in New York for crushing their rights," he said.

New York's new law, the first new measure passed since the massacre in Newtown, Conn., strengthens "New York's existing assault weapons ban, limit the number of bullets allowed in magazines and strengthen rules that govern the mentally ill," reported CNN.

He said he hasn't heard much from New Yorkers, "although on my Facebook site and my Twitter site, I did see some people saying they were going to try to get out of there as quickly as possible. Because, listen, people really are threatened by having their constitutional rights infringed and questioned here," claiming that politicians are trying to "exploit a tragedy."

"And so it would be understandable if some people wanted to flee states that tried to restrict those rights," he said.

Abbot also noted that just across the border from El Paso, Texas, in Juarez, Mexico, assault weapons are banned but that it is "one of the deadliest cities in the entire world."

He also argued Texas is a safer place since it passed a concealed handgun law, despite the fact that opponents said it would "be like the O.K. Corral" with "shootouts all over the place."

Chicago, he also said, had some of the strongest gun laws in the country despite the fact that it is "one of the most dangerous cities in the country."

The evidence on conceal and carry laws reduce crime has been a matter of debate. The National Research Council of the National Academies found in 2004 that "No link between right-to-carry laws and changes in crime is apparent" in an analysis it conducted. "While the trend models show a reduction in the crime growth rate following the adoption of right-to-carry laws, these trend reductions occur long after law adoption, casting serious doubt on the proposition that the trend models estimated in the literature reflect effects of the law change," it read.

Another 2011 study about gun laws in general conducted by the Violence Policy Center found that "States with higher gun ownership rates and weak gun laws have the highest rates of gun death."

Edwards then made an accusation against Chicago's Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Citing a BuzzFeed reporter who claims that the mayor "grabbed" him during an interview, Edwards wondered "if maybe one of the reasons why Rahm Emanuel says that we can't be trusted with guns is because he feels like he can't be trusted with one."

Listen to the video, via NRA News, below.