Louisiana GOP Sen. John Kennedy said the country needs less gun control and more “idiot control,” Tuesday on “CNN Newsroom with John Berman.”
“I don’t think we need more gun control laws,” he said. “I think we need more idiot control.”
Berman became uncomfortable with Kennedy’s use of the word idiot and cut him off to clarify his meaning.
“I’m talking to the people who do this — some of whom are mentally ill and to them I would say, okay, misuse of the word idiot,” Kennedy replied. “But I’m talking about other people. We just automatically assume some of these folks are mentally ill. I happen to believe there is evil in the world.”
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“I’m not going to use the word you use there, but if you’re talking about mentally ill, the issue is how do you keep guns out of their hands, how do you keep them from getting guns, if they should not have them? So what is the tool that you suggest using to do that?” Berman asked.
The laws and tools are already there to prevent this type of behavior, Kennedy said but noted they aren’t being properly utilized.
“We have the tools in place. They’re not being implemented,” he concluded. “Let me say it again. The NICS (National Instant Criminal Background Check) database has holes big enough to drive a Mack truck through. In the instance in Florida, with the man who killed all these people, there is an assumption that he’s mentally ill, I don’t know that, so i will call him an idiot.”
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