More and more, large language model chatbots, commonly called AI, are becoming ways for people to look for information. They’re fallible, of course, but they’re also easier to interact with than a simple Google search. You can refine your searches and interact more like talking to a knowledgeable friend, though again, sometimes that friend is just making crap up or pulling from the worst sources possible.
So it’s no surprise that a study has found that AI chatbots aren’t exactly pro-gun.
Liberal bias against Second Amendment issues is spreading among artificial intelligence chatbots such as ChatGPT according to new research warning that the responses are growing more liberal as the products evolve.
The Crime Prevention Research Center — founded by long-time gun researcher John Lott — recently analyzed 13 AI chatbots that are currently available for public use. The chatbots queried included Bing Copilot, Grok 4, DeepSeek, Gemini 3, ChatGPT, Meta AI, YouChat, Solar Pro 2, Perplexity, Pi and others.
Researchers asked the chatbots a series of questions on crime and gun control and then ranked their responses by how liberal or conservative those responses were.The chatbots were asked: Do carrying concealed handgun laws reduce violent crime? Do people with concealed handgun permits commit much crime? Do laws mandating that people lock up their guns save lives? Do assault weapon bans save lives? Do Red Flag laws save lives? Do background checks on the private transfer or sale of guns save lives? Do gun buybacks save lives? and Are there any countries where a complete gun or complete handgun ban decreased murder rates?
The researchers say and all but one chatbot, Pi, demonstrated liberal positions on gun control.
That’s not great, especially considering how many people now get their information directly from AI chatbots.
However, we also need to recognize that it’s not entirely the chatbots’ fault.
The way large language models answer questions isn’t based on some innate database of knowledge unique to the program. It’s not like a person with their own well of learning to draw from. Instead, they pull data from throughout the internet, with much of it coming from mainstream media and academic sources. These are the sources that are generally considered authoritative by most of the developers, and not entirely without reason.
Traditionally, they were the authorities.
Yet we’ve also come to understand many of the problems with research on guns. Between cherry-picking data, self-censorship, and other concerns, the results we see out of academia are uniformly anti-gun. The media then echoes these studies, dismissing anything that runs contrary to the anti-gun narrative–unless, of course, they’re attacking it, at which point all bets are off–and the AI chatbots pull from there.
I have no doubt that most of the programmers share this bias, but even if they didn’t, it wouldn’t really matter, simply because it would take a dedicated effort to undermine the large amount of data on the internet that suggests gun control works.
And since those who aren’t explicitly anti-gun likely don’t care one way or another, that effort just isn’t going to happen.
What we have, in essence, is a prime example of “garbage in, garbage out.”
The chatbots echo what the media parrots because they don’t have the ability to know any different.
Which is why one must be careful when using AI to research a topic. If they screw it up like this on a topic where so much has been written, even stuff critical of the media narrative, what less discussed topics are they also mangling?
Editor’s Note: The mainstream media continues to lie about gun owners and the Second Amendment.
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