While appearing on CNN, former Texas governor and 2016 presidential contender Rick Perry said he thinks Americans should be allowed to take their guns to the movies. The comments were made in regard to the recent shooting in Lafayette, La.
"We believe in the Second Amendment, and we believe in people's right to protect themselves and defend themselves, and their families," Rick Perry said, according to CNN. Gunman John Houser shot at 11 people earlier this month, killing two. He had purchased the gun he used in a pawn shop and opened fire during a screening of "Trainwreck." At the end of his shooting spree, Houser turned the gun on himself.
"These concepts of gun-free zones are a bad idea," Perry said to CNN. "I believe that, with all my heart, that if you have the citizens who are well trained, and particularly in these places that are considered to be gun-free zones, that we can stop that type of activity, or stop it before there's as many people that are impacted as what we saw in Lafayette."
The movie theater was a gun-free zone. Hours before the shooting in Lafayette, President Barack Obama introduced stricter gun control laws to Congress, according to MSNBC.
Perry also spoke about a shooting in June in Charleston, S.C. Nine people were killed there at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. In both incidents, Perry said law enforcement was lacking. "We have the laws in place...enforcement of those laws is what seems to be lacking," Perry said, according to Bloomberg.
