After former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said that more guns in church were the solution to mass shootings like the one in Charleston, the city’s mayor, Joseph Riley, called those comments “insane.”
In an interview with Alan Colmes on Thursday, Riley said Huckabee’s prescription for gun violence would only lead to more shootings, Mediate reported.
“That is so nutty I can’t even talk. It’s crazy, absolutely crazy. We want everybody to carry a gun and then you have everybody carrying a gun and then somebody gets upset and pull it out because they got it handy and they got mad all of a sudden and rather than argue, or take a swing at somebody, they just kill them,” said Riley.
During Huckabee’s interview with Fox News on Friday, the former governor said that, had another person at the prayer meeting been carrying a gun, they might have been able to fight off Dylann Roof.
“If somebody in that prayer meeting had a conceal carry or there had been either an off-duty policeman or an on-duty policemen, somebody with the legal authority to carry a firearm could have stopped the shooter,” he continued.
On this, Riley said that the shooting victims were elderly and that there were better alternatives to avoid mass shootings.
“You want an 87-year-old retired lady or you want a minister to be carrying a handgun or a 78-year old retired lady that used to work for the city of Charleston? That is so insane. You want those elderly people carrying handguns? Is that the best we can do in America?”
Despite Riley’s opinion, not everyone at the church was a senior citizen.
