'If a guy named Mohammad blew up that church yesterday. O my God, O my God, Washington would be on fire," says MSNBC Moring Joe Host.
Joe Scarboroug was alluding to Sunday's shooting at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas that killed at least 26 people and injured 19.
Just last week after New York president immediately talked about terrorism, talked about death penalty, attacked political opponent, Chuck Schumer, and called for radical vetting, Joe said adding: He attacked America's judiciary after these gun incidents that happened more often than the acts of terrorism, and killed so many more people ... all we get is pray. You cannot talk about gun...this is a mental issue."
President Trump said Monday that the South Texas shooting that killed at least 26 people wasn't "a guns situation," and blamed it instead on the gunman's mental health.
During a news conference in Tokyo, where President Trump is on the first leg of a five-nation Asia trip, he was asked if he thought stricter gun laws could help prevent such mass shootings.
"I think that mental health is your problem here," Trump said. "Based on preliminary reports, a very deranged individual, a lot of problems for a long period of time," he said.
The massacre in Sutherland Springs, which is 30 miles southeast of San Antonio, was the deadliest ever at a house of worship in the United States. The shooter was later found dead. Law enforcement officials identified him as Devin Patrick Kelley, 26, of neighboring Comal County.
Kelley was a former member of the Air Force, discharged for bad conduct in 2014. Ann Stefanek, a spokeswoman for the Air Force, confirmed that Kelley was court-martialed in 2012 on two charges of assaulting his spouse and their child. He was confined for a year and reduced in rank to airman basic E-1 before his discharge, she said.
While Trump termed the Church massacre as mental health problem major US newspapers called for gun control.
"How to help prevent the next gun massacre" was the title of Chicago Tribune editorial:
"Mass killings like the one at a South Texas church are acts of extreme violence that defy rational explanation and simple solution. They raise demands for specific steps to be taken to ban horrors that are as indiscriminate as they are depraved. That doesn't make this a time to mourn and shrug. America needs to deal with its propensity for gun violence. Here was another reminder.
"America has endured so many mass shootings that people across the country were poised immediately to add the Texas incident to the raging debate over gun rights vs. gun control. It's only been a month since Las Vegas, the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.
" Each mass shooting in America is its own terrible story that can't be undone. The responsible perspective is to use the shock of the moment to take actions that will save lives in the future," Chicago Tribune editorial concluded.
Los Angeles Times editorial was titled: "Man commits mass murder with a gun. Again. And America does nothing. Again."
"There have been at least 21 mass killings (defined as at least four dead in one incident) so far this year, in which 176 people have been killed and 486 wounded, led by the sniper slaughter in Las Vegas last month, according to statistics maintained by the Gun Violence Archive. There have been more than 305 mass shootings (defined as at least four people struck by bullets in one incident) with nearly 400 killed and 1,650 wounded. The notion that the "good guy with a gun" solution could ever stanch this kind of bloodletting is ridiculous.
"This is what we accept as normal in the United States of America. This is what we shrug off. The vast majority of gun deaths each year occur in relative obscurity.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
