Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said Monday night at a campaign rally in Las Vegas that if he had been present for the Paris terror attacks, he would’ve personally shot at the attackers and “those people would’ve been gone.”
More than 100 people were killed and more than 350 injured in coordinated terror attacks across Paris at the end of November. The incident reignited attention on the Islamic State, which took responsibility for the attacks carried out by people believed to be French and Belgian nationals.
But Trump said he would’ve been able to kill the shooters if he had been there with his gun in tow.
“If a few of those people that are now dead, if a few of those people had guns strapped to their ankles or strapped to their waists, you wouldn’t have the problem, right?” Trump said. “If I were there, I’m licensed to carry, I will tell you this. If I were there, if somebody were there, if we had some firepower in the opposite direction, those people would’ve been gone.”
But Trump’s rhetoric is less bellicose when he talks about mass shootings in the United States that don’t have a connection to terrorism. Following the massacre earlier this year at Umpqua Community College in Oregon, Trump had said “these things happen” and “you can’t institutionalize everybody,” referring to reports that the gunman suffered from mental health issues.
h/t: Right Wing Watch
