An outraged David Koch has struggled to contain his emotions in an interview with a prominent American gun lobbyist, slamming his anti-gun control views as ‘bulldust’.
The normally calm and collected Sunrise co-host battled to keep his anger in check as he debated U.S gun control with Larry Pratt, the head of ‘Gun Owners of America’.
In the wake of Sunday’s horror Las Vegas shooting that killed 59 and left 527 injured, Koch said Australians looking across the world looked at Americans as ‘stupid’.
Questioning how anyone could consider the current rate one mass shooting a day to be normal, the TV host went head-to-head with Mr Pratt – slamming his views on the second amendment as ‘stupid’ before their interview ended abruptly.
Sunrise co-host David Koch has struggled to contain his emotions (pictured) in an interview with a gun lobbyist in the wake of the Las Vegas massacre, slamming his views as ‘bulldust’
The normally calm and collected Sunrise co-host (left) battled to keep his anger in check as he debated U.S gun control with Larry Pratt (right), the head of ‘Gun Owners of America’
Slamming the head of the lobby group, which has more than 1.5 million supporters in the U.S, Koch debated the need to implement strict Australian style gun control.
‘For the average Australian our heart breaks for the victims and the families of those killed in the tragedy in Las Vegas,’ Koch began.
But then another side of us says, “Why are Americans so stupid not to tighten gun laws?” You bring it on yourselves.’
‘The fact of the matter is since the 1950s, all of these mass murders have occurred in places where we have pretty strict gun control including gun-free zones,’ Mr Pratt claimed.
‘The hotel was a gun-free zone… so yes indeed this keeps the pattern of the failure of gun control.’
Stating Nevada actually has ‘some of the loosest gun laws in the world’, Koch asked how Americans could continue claiming the second amendment was a good thing.
After accusing the Sunrise star of having a ‘temper’, the gun lobbyist ended the interview much to the bemusement of Koch and his co-host Samantha Armytage
‘The second amendment is intended to keep our government at bay. And from time to time Americans have been able to keep excessive government from becoming radical,’ Mr Pratt responded.
Left seething by the gun lobbyist’s claims – which he labelled ‘baloney’ – Koch hit out at the ease with which Americans can get their hands on high-powered weapons.
‘That amendment was brought in when people were using muskets!’ the TV star said, struggling not to lose his composure.
‘Why would any decent American need to own a machine gun?’
Claiming that human nature being the ‘same’ as it was centuries ago proved guns are not the problem, Mr Pratt said he believed the amendment worked ‘rather nicely’.
But Koch wasn’t buying it.
Stephen Paddock, the gunman responsible for America’s worst ever massacre, bought his weapons from a ‘Guns a Guitars’ store (pictured)
Thousands of people were forced to hide as bullets rained down on them from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel
Paddock broke a window in his Mandalay Bay hotel room (pictured) and began firing onto the unsuspecting crowd
‘What do you mean it’s worked rather nicely? You’re not keeping the government at bay, you’re killing each other,’ he said.
‘You have a mass shooting everyday in America… that’s got nothing to do with the government, you just shoot each other.’
‘We are the upholder of freedom in the world,’ Mr Pratt responded, to which Koch objected by saying: ‘No you’re not, no you’re not.’
After accusing the Sunrise star of having a ‘temper’, the gun lobbyist ended the interview much to the bemusement of Koch and his co-host Samantha Armytage.
‘They do experience tyranny in America, every single day. Yesterday was tyranny in America,’ she said, before claiming the nonsensical debate had left her ‘depressed’.
The Mandalay Bay is seen the morning after a gunmen fired on concert goers in Las Vegas