Can Stricter Gun Laws Stop Terrorist Attacks?
The deadliest mass shooting in American history has refueled the political debate about gun control, with Democrats calling for stricter regulations and Republicans placing blame on “radical Islamic terrorism.”
Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt said on the FOX Business Network’s Varney and Co. Wednesday that tighter gun control laws won’t stop terrorists who are committed to killing anyone that’s against their ideology.
“The states that have the most gun control like California, that already ban assault rifles, that’s where San Bernardino happened and we learn this lesson over and over again. Law abiding citizens have guns and they’re former military, they’re law enforcement, they are moms, they’re wives,” Laxalt said.
President Obama on Monday spoke at the White House following the shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, which left 49 people dead and 53 injured. He reiterated the importance of regulating “access to powerful firearms.”
Laxalt shared his frustration with the Obama Administration at a time of national tragedy and said, “rather than the President of the United States unifying us in the way we were unified after September 11, instead we have more division after this horrific tragedy than we ever had from a similar attack.”
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump weighed in on Wednesday by saying he is willing to meet with the National Rifle Association to discuss banning those on a terror watch list from buying and owning a firearm.
I will be meeting with the NRA, who has endorsed me, about not allowing people on the terrorist watch list, or the no fly list, to buy guns.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 15, 2016
“We’ve seen it with the refugee crisis that [FBI] Director Comey said we have no ability to figure out who the good guys and the bad guys are coming in and out of this country,” Laxalt told host Stuart Varney.
According to Laxalt, the federal government has lost its central focus and has done a terrible job differentiating who is coming into the United States with good and bad intentions.
"I just find it appalling that we are focusing on everything but the primary threat, which is radical Islamic terrorism, Laxalt said."