Donald Trump Said Paris Attack Victims With Guns Could Have Thwarted Suicide Bombers [Video]
Donald Trump asked for a moment of silence in honor of the Paris terrorist attack victims. After the moment ended, he told a cheering crowd in Beaumont, Texas, that if Paris gun control laws were less strict, people would have been able to defend themselves against suicide bombers. He also commented that Syrian refugees should have never been allowed into the City of Lights.
Trump compared Paris to Chicago, noted a Washington Post report, but there is no comparison when it comes to guns. Illinois law allows residents to carry concealed weapons, if they meet specific criteria. But guns used by gang bangers aren’t acquired legally, and the measures that are now in place are for law-abiding citizens.
You can say what you want, but if they had guns — if our people had guns, if they were allowed to carry — it would have been a much, much different situation. I hear it all the time, you know. You look at certain cities that have the highest violence, the highest problem with guns and shootings and killings — Chicago is an example, toughest gun laws in the United States, nothing but problems. So our country better get smart because we’re not smart right now.
France, unlike the U.S., has no “right to bear arms,” and gun ownership by private citizens is not protected by law. To purchase a gun in Paris, citizens are required to obtain a hunting license and to undergo a psych evaluation. Periodically, licenses must be renewed. This didn’t stop Donald Trump from imposing what he deems as American values on the French. He has yet to learn that every country doesn’t have the same mindset, and the number of homicides in the United States is due, at least in part, to loose gun control laws.
When you look at Paris — you know the toughest gun laws in the world, Paris — nobody had guns but the bad guys. Nobody had guns. Nobody. They were just shooting them one by one and then they [security forces] broke in and had a big shootout, and ultimately, killed the terrorists.
Donald Trump on Paris: “Nobody Had Guns Except for Bad Guys” https://t.co/ANfTPnGAiz pic.twitter.com/kvK99I1p8G
— Slate (@Slate) November 15, 2015
Trump, appealing to the crowd which reflects the values of a Republican base, went into the graphics of victims being shot one by one, then claimed there was a “big shoot out” where terrorists were killed. And here’s another thought: Shooting a person with a bomb attached to his body would probably cause the bomb to detonate.
The demise of the terrorists, at least the ones that have been caught so far, wasn’t accomplished by a standoff with Parisian police. “The Donald’s” information is not fact based. In the devastating attack that left at least 129 dead and dozens more injured, six of the seven attackers were killed when suicide bombs were detonated and one was shot dead, noted Time. A Syrian passport was found near the body of one attacker.
This isn’t the first time Donald Trump weighed in on a terrorist attack in France. In January, when Paris satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo headquarters was targeted, the GOP candidate tweeted, “Isn’t it interesting that the tragedy in Paris took place in one of the toughest gun control countries in the world?” French ambassador Gerard Aurard, who thought the old tweet referred to the November 13 attack, tweeted back, “This message is repugnant in its lack of any human decency. Vulture,” but the tweet was later deleted, per a CNN report.
French ambassador calls Donald Trump a “vulture” after his old Paris tweet goes viral https://t.co/n3ZGiLgNgF pic.twitter.com/eqKkdfrCRx
— Talking Points Memo (@TPM) November 15, 2015
Despite Donald Trump’s radical views on terrorism, gun control, immigration, and other issues, to date, he remains number one in the Republican presidential primary race polls. If his ideas on eradicating terrorism is a show down between the IS and the United States, it’s horrifying to imagine what would happen if he became president. It’s common knowledge that the days of the Wild Wild West are over. Maybe the Pony Express rider got lost while delivering the message to Trump.
[Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images]
