A day after two journalists in Virginia were fatally shot on live television, Donald Trump is rejecting calls to strengthen gun control laws. Instead, he told CNN’s Chris Cuomo today that mental health issues are to blame for gun violence in America. This isn’t a gun problem, this is a mental problem,” the presidential hopeful said.
“You’re not going to get rid of all guns,” Trump added. “I know one thing: If you try to do it, the bad guys would have them. And the good folks would abide by the laws but be hopeless.” The real state mogul defended the Second Amendment, which he said he was “very much into.”
Trump’s opposition to stricter gun legislation in favor of focusing on mental health problems is not new. But many experts argue such thinking is flawed. “Consider that between 2001 and 2010, there were nearly 120,000 gun-related homicides…Few were perpetrated by people with mental illness,” psychiatry professor Richard A. Friedman wrote in the New York Times after the Newtown shooting in 2012.
Trump is just one of the 2016 candidates to weigh in following the murders of Alison Parker and Adam Ward on Wednesday morning. Speaking at a press conference in Iowa, Hillary Clinton told reporters that she was “stricken” by the shooting. “We have got to do something about gun violence in America,” Clinton said. “And I will take it on.”
Heartbroken and angry. We must act to stop gun violence, and we cannot wait any longer. Praying for the victims’ families in Virginia. -H
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) August 26, 2015
Speaking to Fox News’ Megyn Kelly on Wednesday night, the father of one of the victims vowed to fight for increased gun control measures. “Whatever it takes to get gun legislation, to shame people, to shame legislators into doing something about closing loopholes and background checks and making sure crazy people don’t get guns,” Andy Parker said.