Obama: It's easier to buy a gun than a vegetable

(Image credit: Scott Olson/Getty Images)

published 13 March 2015

Speaking in South Carolina last week, President Barack Obama argued that in some places in America it is easier to purchase a gun than a vegetable:

[A]s long as you can go into some neighborhoods and it is easier for you to buy a firearm than it is for you to buy a book, there are neighborhoods where it’s easier for you to buy a handgun and clips than it is for you to buy a fresh vegetable — as long as that’s the case, we’re going to continue to see unnecessary violence. [WhiteHouse.gov]

While Obama may have been referencing food deserts — areas where it is difficult to access fresh food, especially without owning a car — as The Washington Post points out, "there are no areas in the United States where background checks are needed to buy vegetables." Beyond bureaucratic considerations, the cost difference between guns and even the priciest vegetables also makes Obama's statement implausible.

The White House declined to explain the remark.

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.