A guest on MSNBC claimed Friday the culture of gun ownership in America was based on the oppression of “indigenous people,” and added that the country was “built by violence.”

“Unfortunately we live in a country that was built by violence,” Brittany Packett Cunningham, a social justice activist who founded Campaign Zero, told MSNBC host Chris Jansing. “America used the gun, used the hand, used the whip against indigenous people, against enslaved Africans to build this country that we now inhabit, and the trouble with a culture of violence is that it spreads like a smog, and it gets into everything.” (RELATED: Obama Praises Australia For Confiscating Citizens’ Guns)

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Cunningham also blasted “stand your ground” laws, which do not require people to retreat before they can defend themselves, after Jansing asked about a case where a South Carolina convenience store owner was charged with murder after shooting a 14-year-old who allegedly shoplifted from the establishment.

“In many of the states that have those stand your ground laws, that provides a defense or at least some protection to people who use guns in situations like this,” Cunningham said. “Most states the law requires that if you’re faced with deadly force and you have the option of escaping, remaining completely safe, that’s what you have to do.”

“Stand your ground laws are based on this macho ethic that real men don’t run, they stay and fight, but they’re not about affirming life.” Cunningham claimed.

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