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Where do top GOP candidates stand on guns after the Ore. shooting?

By Rebecca Downs

Following the tragic shooting in Oregon last week, it’s inevitable that the presidential candidates would be asked where they stand on gun control.

Ben Carson

On Tuesday, Carson sat down with USA Today’s Capitol Download. Host Susan Page asked Carson if he would be in favor of any gun control proposals.

Carson spoke about being “a very reasonable person.” He also said that:

So, if someone can show me a proposal that would have avoided this massacre, or the other ones before it, I am extremely willing to listen to that. But right now, I think we have to be intelligent, which to say there’s a pattern that we’re seeing here of people who are committing this, in terms of their mental stability.
We need to be able to identify these people before this happens, not only to save the lives of the victims of the shooting, but to save the lives of the shooter.

About access to guns, specifically military assault rifle bans, Carson spoke to how that wouldn’t have prevented this tragedy, or others. “I’m for doing things that work,” Carson said, “not for things that stroke the emotions.”

He also mentioned that he would be in favor of teachers being armed, and that he would be “much more comfortable” if there was a police officer or someone trained with the weapon, including a teacher.

Marco Rubio

While on NBC’s Today show on Tuesday, Rubio was asked about the shooting. He spoke to how gun control would have done nothing to stop the tragedy:

What I know is this: Many of the proposals that are out there now on gun control would not have prevented that attack, or some of the others we’ve seen in the past.
Unfortunately in cases of mental illness, or in the cases of someone who just wants a gun to carry out a crime, they’re not gonna follow the law.

When it comes to how he would lead on the issue, Rubio spoke about figuring out why people act to commit violent actions and treating mental illness.

Donald Trump

The GOP front-runner addressed the tragedy on Saturday. As CBS reported, Trump mentioned that:

The Second Amendment of our Constitution is clear. Every time something happens, they don’t blame mental illness — that our mental healthcare is out of whack and all of the other problems. And by the way, it was a gun-free zone. I will tell you — if you had a couple of the teachers or somebody with guns in that room, you would have been a hell of a lot better off.

As CBS also pointed out though, Trump made similar remarks to Jeb’s widely shared “stuff happens” comment, despite criticizing his choice of words:

No matter what you do you will always have problems. That’s why people are watching the news. There’s always going to be problems. There’s always going to be horrible things happening. And that’s not necessarily politically correct.

Jeb Bush

One candidate who received a lot of attention for his remarks following the tragedy was Jeb. After he spoke with CNN’s Ryan Lizza, many criticized Jeb for his casual comment that “stuff happens.”

The Federalist and Breitbart were quick to call out Lizza for his selective reporting though, and pointed to the full context of Jeb’s statements:

We’re in a difficult time in our country and I don’t think more government is necessarily the answer to this. I think we need to reconnect ourselves with everybody else. It’s very sad to see. I resist the notion. I had this challenge as governor, ’cause we had, look, stuff happens, there’s always a crisis. And the impulse is always to do something and it’s not necessarily the right thing to do.
…
That whenever you see a tragedy take place, the impulse in the political system, most, more often than at the federal level, but also at the state level, is to ‘do something,’ right? And what we end up doing lots of times is we create rules on the 99.999 percent of human activity that had nothing to do with the tragedy that forced the conversation about doing something. And we’re taking people’s rights away each time we do that, and we’re not necessarily focusing on the real challenge.

Carly Fiorina

A clip from MSNBC shows Fiorina in Charleston, at a Sen. Tim Scott event on Friday. Fiorina talked about prosecuting those who have guns and are not supposed to. The Oregon shooter, “it appeared, is one of those individuals,” said Fiorina.

She said that “before we start calling for more laws, I think we oughtta consider why we don’t enforce the laws we have.”

Fiorina also criticized Obama’s comments for being “premature at best and at worst a really unfortunate politicization of this tragedy.”

Mike Huckabee

On CNN, Huckabee mentioned that additional restrictions on guns won’t stop people with mental illness. He also keeps waiting to hear what gun control law will prevent such shootings:

I keep waiting for someone to tell me what new gun law can we past that would have prevented this shooting or Sandy Hook or Aurora or Charleston. Just tell me what gun law that is because I’ve yet to have somebody tell me what that is.

He also spoke about agreeing with having “fewer guns,” but in the “hands of crazy people.” He did mention that “maybe a gun in the hands of a police officer, a security officer or a well trained citizen who could intervene and at least save some of the lives, if not all of them.”

Ted Cruz

The Dallas Morning News reported that Cruz addressed gun-free zones.

He mentioned to Howie Carr of WRKO-AM:

Sadly, virtually every one of these shootings across the country has occurred in so-called gun free school zones. If you look at the jurisdictions that have really strict gun control laws, they consistently have among the highest crime rates.

John Kasich

NBC News has a video of Kasich reacting Thursday on camera to hearing about the Oregon shooting.

Katich also mentioned that:

Look, one thing you learn. You can strip all the guns away but the people who are going to commit crimes or have problems are always going to have the guns and more and more people feel like I’d like to be able to protect myself.

He also spoke about how there needs to be systems of warning at schools and added that “stripping law abiding people of their guns, I just don’t think, I don’t believe it will get the job done. I just don’t.”

Kasich also spoke about how not treating the mentally ill is “one of the areas where we’ve really fallen down.”

 

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