The White House’s top spokesman stood by President Obama’s comment during his recent speech at the police memorial service in Dallas that it is easier for a teen to buy a Glock than get a book.
Over the last week since Obama delivered the line as a part of a wide-ranging address about race in America, fact-checkers for several news organizations have deemed the statement largely false.
In fact, the Washington Post fact-checker said the line was “catchy” and sparked attention but ultimately “doesn’t make much sense.”
Confronted with those findings, spokesman Josh Earnest said Obama is not backing away from it, even when asked if he meant it in a more figurative, not literal sense.
“…With all due respect to the fact-checkers when the president delivered that line to a room full of about 1,000 cops, there was not a lot of evident disagreement,” Earnest said.
From his talks with police, Obama is aware of the “genuine concern on the minds of law enforcement officials who work in disadvantaged communities about how readily accessible illegal guns are and how hard it is in that community get access to educational opportunities that will allow them to escape that neighborhood,” Earnest said.
He then blamed Republicans in Congress for the situation because they haven’t provided greater funding to schools in poor neighborhoods and have rejected calls for “common sense” gun legislation.
Instead of improving these areas and limiting access to guns, law enforcement officers have had to deal with the problem and have been unfairly burdened with more duties because of it.
Police officers have to be the “director of the after school program or the drug counselor,” he said. “So adding that burden to law enforcement is not fair.”
During the speech in Dallas, Obama made the Glock statement while ticking off a number of problems he believed was related to the recent spate of violent clashes between police and the communities they serve.
“We flood communities with so many guns that it is easier for a teenager to buy a Glock than get his hands on a computer or even a book,” he said.
The Washington Post fact-checker columnist said she has received “numerous” reader requests to verify the claim. The column highlighted the federal laws that prevent dealers from selling or transferring handguns, such as Glocks, to people under 21 years old, and the fact that public libraries have no age requirements.
The White House provided the Post supplemental material, including reports showing “book deserts” — a limited number of bookstores or educational resources — in poor areas of Detroit, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles, compared to higher-income communities.
The Post still gave the claim three Pinocchios considering that students can get a book or use a computer for free at a public library.
“The president can make the point without resorting to such an exaggerated claim based on no real statistics, and which does nothing but distract the public,” the paper concluded.
