Rick Perry: Allowing Guns In Movie Theaters Would Prevent Shootings
"These concepts of gun-free zones are a bad idea."
Former
Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) claimed that if people could bring their guns
to the movies, they could have prevented the movie theater shooting in
Lafayette, Louisiana, Thursday evening.
"These
concepts of gun-free zones are a bad idea. I think that you allow the
citizens of this country -- who have been appropriately trained,
appropriately backgrounded, know how to handle and use firearms -- to
carry them," he told CNN’s Jake Tapper Sunday.
“I believe that, with all my heart, that if you have the citizens who
are well trained, and particularly in these places that are considered
to be gun-free zones, that we can stop that type of activity, or stop it
before there's as many people that are impacted as what we saw in
Lafayette."
Such a provision “makes a lot of sense” under the Second Amendment, the 2016 presidential hopeful said.
When
Tapper asked if that solution would be more effective than
strengthening gun control laws, Perry pushed argued that the problem in
Lafayette and the recent shooting in Charleston, South Carolina, is a
lack of enforcement.
“We
need to enforce the laws that are on the books,” he said. “Somebody
didn't do their job in the standpoint of enforcing the laws that are on
the books."
Louisiana
Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) similarly called for better enforcement of gun
laws, stressing that John Russell Houser, the shooter who had a history
of mental illness, should not have been able to obtain a gun.
"Every
time this happens, it seems like the person has a history of mental
illness. We need to make sure the systems we have in place actually
work," he said on CBS’ "Face the Nation." “We need to make sure that
background system is working. Absolutely, in this instance, this man
never should have been able to buy a gun."
Houser legally purchased the gun used Thursday
at a pawn shop in Alabama last year, according to law enforcement
officials. He had previously been denied a pistol due to a prior arrest
and reports of domestic violence.
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