Greg Gutfeld Asks ‘Permission to Go Alex Jones’ on Fox News

Greg Gutfeld is no fan of New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s emergency order banning for 30 days the open and concealed carry of guns in Albuquerque and Bernalillo County, as the Fox News co-host opted Monday to “go Alex Jones” to make a self-described “conspiratorial” argument against it.

“I’ve had enough of people declaring emergencies in order to take control of our lives,” began Gutfeld, apparently referring to COVID-19 safety precautions, which he often speaks out against.

Gutfeld then opted for a hardly new train of thought among those on the right when confronted with the staggeringly high frequency of mass shootings in the United States when compared with other developed countries.

“I know that mass shootings are bad, but if we are going to do the numbers, then let’s do the numbers. It’s exceedingly rare compared to car fatalities,” Gutfeld told his colleagues on The Five. “Why don’t we declare emergencies on that? We can declare emergencies on anything. This is part of a bigger problem we are seeing unfold.”

Gutfeld, who described himself last year as “pro-disinformation,” tried to make his point by invoking Alex Jones, the bankrupt conspiracy theorist who falsely claimed that the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was staged in order to undermine the Second Amendment.

“Permission to go Alex Jones?” Gutfeld asked, drawing a laugh from colleague Jesse Watters, while co-host Dana Perino said she’d have to decline.

Gutfeld went ahead anyway.

“This 30-day suspension of a constitutional right is meant to be a trial balloon, right? A test for something that might happen in the next year, in the run-up to the election. Saying that the Second Amendment is not absolute and having a few gun-control fanatics say, ‘Hold on’–that’s theater,” Gutfeld claimed.

Bernalillo County Sheriff John Allen, a Democrat, said Monday that Grisham’s order—issued the day after she declared a public health emergency due to gun violence—was unconstitutional. Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) agreed. And gun control activist David Hogg, who survived the 2018 Parkland, Florida school shooting, likewise commented that although he supports gun safety, “there is no such thing as a state public health emergency exception to the U.S. Constitution.”

In addition to Grisham’s order, Gutfeld claimed that another “trial balloon” was California’s Prop 47, a 2014 referendum which reclassified thefts of up to $950 in goods from felonies to misdemeanors. “That’s another trial balloon for the end of private property, in my conspiratorial theater,” he alleged.

“You can see these all kind of go together. You are seeing an attack on speech. You’re seeing an attack on personal protection,” Gutfeld said. “I have a feeling this timing is strange, and it might get very weird. I think this next election will make the other two look like a game of pickleball among friends. I mean, why would you suspend the Second Amendment?”

“This is where I become Alex Jones,” Gutfeld concluded, before imitating Jones’ voice.

“Militarized action will succeed without friction! Stage an event, call a clampdown, disarm the public!”

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