Mere days after the Lafayette theater shootings that injured 11 and killed two people, plus the gunman, Rick Perry says that what we need is more guns around to stop this kind of violence before it escalates. The shootings, the former governor told CNN on Sunday, show why gun-free zones are “a bad idea” and why it “makes a lot of sense” for people to be allowed to take their guns into movie theaters.
At one point CNN’s Jake Tapper directly asked if the way to prevent future shootings was to add more guns to the mix. “I think that it makes a lot of sense to send a message across this country,” Perry replied. “If we believe in the Second Amendment, and we believe in people’s right to protect themselves and defend themselves, and their families.”
Perry added that the problem with gun-free zones is that the current laws aren’t being enforced. The Lafayette shooter should not have been allowed to get a gun in the first place but if others who were legally allowed to have guns would have been present then a bloodbath may have been prevented not only in Lafayatte but also at the church in Charleston, South Carolina.
“I will suggest to you that these concepts of gun-free zones are a bad idea,” Perry said. “I think that you allow the citizens of this country, who have appropriately trained, appropriately backgrounded, know how to handle and use firearms, to carry them. 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.”
