Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee on Friday questioned whether any gun law could have prevented the shooter at a community college in Oregon from killing at least nine people and wounding a handful of others.
“I keep waiting for someone to tell me what new gun law can we pass that would have prevented this shooting, or Sandy Hook, or Aurora, [or] Charleston — just tell me what gun law that is, [because] I have yet to hear somebody tell me what that is,” Mr. Huckabee, a 2016 GOP presidential candidate, said on CNN.
“Let’s ask this question: what stopped that shooter in Oregon yesterday? What stopped him?” he said. “He was continuing to shoot — what stopped him? It was a police officer with what? A conversation? A reading from a book? It was a cop with a gun that stopped him.”
He said Umpqua Community College in Roseburg chose not to arm their security guards.
“So when I hear people say ’fewer guns’ — fewer guns in the hands of crazy people, I agree, but maybe a gun in the hand of a police officer, in a security officer or in a well-trained citizen who can intervene and at least save some of the lives, if not all of them,” he said.
Interim President Rita Cavin called Thursday’s incident “a tragedy” and “anomaly” and said there aren’t any planned security changes.
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“We have a beautiful, warm, friendly, loving campus and we intend to keep it that way,” she said.
Mr. Huckabee said there’s always a discussion about the particular kind of weapon used, but that “we’ve got a human behavior problem. We’ve got a problem with uncivilized savages.”
“We have a problem with people who elevate themselves,” he said. “This particular gunman targeted Christians, apparently — I might suggest that if people really followed the spirit of Christ, which is to put others above self instead of self above others, people wouldn’t murder each other like this. And we’ve got a nation and a world in which people have just obliterated that sense of moral character, responsibility, and accountability for their actions.”
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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