Trump: Mass Shooters Are Sick 'Geniuses'

Guns aren't the problem, he says
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 5, 2015 2:25 AM CDT
Trump: Mass Shooters Are Sick 'Geniuses'
Donald Trump speaks at an event, Saturday, Oct. 3, 2015, in Franklin, Tenn.   (AP Photo/Mark Zaleski)

Mass shootings in America aren't a gun problem, they're a mental health problem, according to Donald Trump. He told a rally in Nashville on Saturday that "it's not the guns, it's the people. It's these sick people," the AP reports. "Many states and many cities are closing their mental health facilities and closing them down, and they're closing them because they don't have the funding. And we have to start looking much stronger into mental health," he said. On NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday, Trump explained that gun control wouldn't help because "they can be sick as hell and they’re geniuses in a certain way. They are going to be able to break the system.”

He also told NBC that to avoid copycat killings, the media should have followed the local sheriff's advice and refused to name the gunman after the mass shooting in Oregon. At the Nashville rally, Trump spoke against "gun-free zones," saying people "would have been a hell of a lot better off" if there had been "teachers with guns in that room" during the Oregon shooting, and said that since he has a handgun carry permit in New York, anyone who attacks him is in for a surprise, CNN reports. He brought up Charles Bronson's Death Wish, got the audience to chant the name of the movie, and said: "Today you can’t make that movie because it’s not politically correct," reports the Guardian. (Jeb Bush took a lot of heat for saying "Stuff happens" after the Oregon shooting.)

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