During a speech in South Carolina, Donald Trump again argued that the tough gun control laws in Paris contributed to the high death toll during the series of terrorist attacks there. He couldn’t be more right:
“If some of the people in those places where it was slaughter, absolute slaughter, had guns you wouldn’t have had the carnage that you had in Paris,” Trump said of the attacks, which killed 129 people, during a rally at the USS Yorktown in South Carolina.
Then, he raised his hands, seemingly re-enacting the attacks, which the Islamic State terrorist group (ISIS) has claimed to have organized.
“It was like target practice,” Trump said. “Come over here, boom, come over here, boom.”
His remarks drew sustained applause from the crowd in South Carolina.
During the speech, Trump noted the importance of the Second Amendment and said “we have to preserve it and cherish it and we can’t let these weak leaders diminish it.”
In the days since the deadly Paris attacks, Trump has been sharply critical of attempts to tighten gun laws and has argued that if even a few people had guns in Paris, the attacks would have been far less deadly.
His comments on the most recent Paris attacks echo those he made in January after a different attack targeted the headquarters of the magazine Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish market.
Trump’s comments here come as he is facing scrutiny over his call to ban all Muslims from entering the country until the United States can “figure out what is going on” after the terrorist attacks in San Bernardino, Calif.
In a statement, Trump said that the “hatred” among Muslims for Americans is “beyond comprehension,” and that the United States needs to confront “where this hatred comes from and why.”
Bottom line is that we need to quit talking about gun control and start talking about how we will get this country out of the mess it is in.
Seriously, people, priorities.