As the nation reels from yet another mass shooting, one that left eight dead in a Jewish synagogue in Pittsburgh, the president is continuing to push his same, old, tired Republican talking points about arming more people to prevent shootings as he heads to more rallies and applause parties.
Trump’s first response to yet another mass shooting was to suggest more guns.
‘This is a case where if they had an armed guard inside, they might have been able to stop him immediately. If they had protection inside, the results would have been far better.’
He also suggested speeding up the death penalty for mass shooters in lieu of preventing these tragedies ahead of time by implementing common sense gun laws.
‘When people do this, they should get the death penalty and they shouldn’t have to wait years and years. They should pay the ultimate price.’
Neither Trump nor the NRA is likely to ever acknowledge that four of the eight casualties were police officers trained to respond to such situations. When facing an assault rifle, being armed yourself is not always helpful or sufficient. With Republicans raking in the NRA donations, however, that fact will go unaddressed yet again.
Nor will Trump acknowledge the fact that states in which the death penalty is still legal do not have a lesser rate of violent crime and that putting a mass shooter to death does not bring back anyone’s family member after they’ve already been killed.
Twitter was not up for hearing Trump’s comments. Read some of their responses below:
Featured image via Flickr by Gage Skidmore under a Creative Commons license