From The NRA Shooting Range: Hannity Gun Special Features Assault Rifle Demonstration

Sean Hannity devoted a special episode of his Fox News show to defending and promoting the National Rifle Association -- complete with a demonstration of guns at the NRA shooting range.

The Friday edition of Hannity featured an extensive interview with NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre and a panel discussion about guns. Mixed in was a segment with world-champion shooter Jessie Duff firing weapons at the NRA range in Fairfax, Virginia, including an AR-15 assault rifle.

Sean Hannity and Jessie Duff

The AR-15 was used by the gunmen in both the Aurora, Colorado, theater shooting and the Newtown, Connecticut, school massacre.

Duff called the AR-15 “probably one of the most popular rifles in the U.S. right now, thanks to all the media attention.” As Duff described features of the rifle, she repeated the NRA's false defense of assault weapons: that their differences from other firearms are merely “cosmetic.”

In fact, these features create functional differences that make assault weapons more lethal.

Jessie Duff with AR-15

Duff then fired three rounds from the AR-15:

Jessie Duff firing AR-15

Duff also fired a hunting rifle, a shotgun, and two handguns to demonstrate the differences in the damage they cause and highlighted the fact that the AR-15 left the smallest bullet holes:

Bullet holes

Duff and Hannity used the comparison between the effects of the bullets to portray opposition to an assault weapons ban as silly and baseless; gesturing to the AR-15 bullet holes, Duff said that in comparison to the other weapons she had fired, the AR-15 “is the least of your worries.”

In reality, there is evidence to support concerns about assault weapons.