Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has defended gun rights in the aftermath of the >shooting at an Oregon college that left fifteen dead.
Mr. Trump, the billionaire businessman and early Republican front—runner, said on Saturday in a rally in suburban Nashville that he has a handgun carry permit in New York. He added that any attacker will be “shocked” if he tries to assault him, and that he would emulate Charles Bronson in the vigilante film “Death Wish.”
“Can you imagine with Trump, somebody says, ‘Ohhh, all these big monsters aren’t around, he’s easy pickins, and then ... pu—ching!” Mr. Trump said to laughter and applause. “So this is about self-defence, plain and simple.”
Mr. Trump criticised “gun-free zones,” saying that the Oregon shootings could have been limited if instructors or students had been armed. He said better mental health care would help curb future shootings.
“Many states and many cities are closing their mental health facilities and closing them down, and they’re closing them because they don’t have the funding,” he said. “And we have to start looking much stronger into mental health.”
While Mr. Trump warned that “no matter what you do, you will always have problems,” he argued that it doesn’t make sense to limit access to firearms.
“It’s not the guns,” Mr. Trump said during his speech. “It’s the people, it’s these sick people.”
He also criticised President Barack Obama’s comments in response to the shootings as “divisive.”
