Former GOP lawmaker says mass shootings are driven by CULTURE and not lack of gun control – and insist Congress can’t fix the problem because they are the ‘biggest instigators of hate and racism and violence in the country right now’
- Republican former senator Jim DeMint said gun violence is caused by a decline in American culture, not lax gun control
- He said that Congress needs to focus on setting a better example, not gun laws
- He said Congress is instigating ‘hate and racism and violence in the country’ now
- DeMint doesn’t believe red flag laws work, they punish law-abiding gun owners
- He said taking away certain types of guns won’t stop people from violent acts, they’ll find other weapons to use if their guns are taken away
Former Republican US Senator Jim DeMint has said that gun control laws won’t prevent the tremendous rise in mass shootings and that the ‘decline’ in American culture is responsible for them.
DeMint, who represented South Carolina, also said that stopping gun violence isn’t something that can be fixed by passing federal regulations and legislation, particularly the ‘red flag’ laws which 15 states have now.
The increased number of shootings, DeMint said during a new Fox News interview are ‘more symptomatic of a decline in our culture – I’m not sure any new laws are going to help that.’
Republican former senator Jim DeMint said that he believe gun violence is symptomatic of a decline in American culture and won’t be stopped by federal gun control legislation
He added that ‘Congress could do more than anything else by setting a better example of how to treat people. They’re probably the biggest instigators of hate and racism and violence in the country right now. So, they need to look inward at just how they behave.’
The Republican ex-senator did not specify who in Congress or what party was responsible for instigating the ‘hate and racism and violence,’ though.
During the interview, DeMint also revealed that he doesn’t think that red flag laws will help reduce gun violence either.
Red flag laws allow police or relatives to petition a court to temporarily remove guns from a person who may be a danger to themselves or others. If the court decides to allow the removal of the guns, they are usually returned to their owner after a set period of time.
‘More federal laws are very unlikely to help,’ DeMint said. ‘We already have background checks. Where we see improvement is at the state and community level, where states are doing more to protect buildings and facilities, to try to deal with drug use and mental illness.’
DeMint (in 2018) blamed Congress for being ‘the biggest instigators of hate and racism and violence in the country right now’
DeMint’s comments came just weeks after the deadly mass shootings in El Paso (memorial attendees pictured) and Dayton
DeMint said taking away certain types of guns from people would just lead them to use other weapons, like knives or bombs, as alternatives. Pictured here is the Anderson Manufacturing AM-15 rifle with a 100-round double drum magazine used by the Dayton shooter
Red flags laws, he said, ‘we see that they’re not working. They actually give someone who has a grudge against you the ability to send police to your house, to take your guns away, drag you into court, cost you thousands of dollars and for the most part it’s been against law abiding citizens when they haven’t created any crime.’
DeMint said that even if guns were taken away from mentally unstable people, they would find alternative weapons to use against people.
‘We don’t have [any] indication that trying to pass laws to keep certain types of guns away from people – they’ll just move to another type of gun, and we’ve seen that,’ he said, noting that they could use knives or bombs as alternatives.
Although he conceded that he is interested in stopping gun violence, he said that he doesn’t ‘see any evidence that federal laws can do it.’
‘As long as you’re trying to look at federal laws that target everybody, you generally miss the criminals,’ he said.