Following the horrific murder of dozens of worshippers in Texas yesterday, demands for gun control were prevalent, but President Trump, speaking at a press conference in Tokyo, said the mass shooting was not "a guns situation," pointing out that the problem was the killer's "mental health."
“I think that mental health is your problem here,” Trump said during a news conference in Tokyo, Japan in response to a question about the massacre in Sutherland Springs, Texas.
“This was a very - based on preliminary reports - a very deranged individual. A lot of problems over a long period of time.”
However, as The Hill reports, police have identified the shooter as Devin Kelley, 26, but have not issued an assessment about his mental health.
Kelley reportedly received a bad conduct discharge from the Air Force in 2014 over allegations of domestic violence.
The president said that “we have a lot of mental health problems in our country, as do other countries, but this isn’t a guns situation.”
“This is a mental health problem at the highest level, it’s a very, very sad event,” Trump added .
The shooting, in which 26 people were killed and 20 others injured, shocked the country and cast a cloud over Trump’s visit to Asia. He first reacted to the speech earlier Monday while speaking at the U.S. Embassy in Japan, calling the violent outburst an “act of evil.”
Later at the news conference, The Hill notes that Trump declared that “it’s a little bit soon” to discuss the issue of guns, and suggested that more people would have been killed if another armed person had not opened fire on the church gunman.
"Fortunately, somebody else had a gun that was shooting in the opposition direction,” he said.
“Otherwise, it wouldn’t have been as bad as it was, it would have been much worse.”
Along those lines of personal protection, many are pointing to a tweet by Texas Governor Greg Abbot from two years ago...
I'm EMBARRASSED: Texas #2 in nation for new gun purchases, behind CALIFORNIA. Let's pick up the pace Texans. @NRA https://t.co/Ry2GInbS1g
— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) October 28, 2015
But finally, we note that, as LA Times reports, Of the five deadliest shootings in US history, three came in the last two years, two in the last two months...