GOP presidential contenders have different views on dealing with gun violence — but none believe stricter restrictions will prevent the kind of carnage that erupted in California at the hands of a pair of reportedly radicalized shooters.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, in the wake of the Wednesday mass killings in San Bernardino, is going ahead with a Friday scheduled event in Johnston, Iowa, to unveil his "National 2nd Amendment Coalition,"
Politico reports.
"Even in the midst of horrific events like this, we should never rush to take away the basic liberties enshrined in our Constitution that are guaranteed to law-abiding American citizens," Cruz spokeswoman Catherine Frazier tells Politico.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio told Fox News host Neil Cavuto that gun control has already proved it doesn't work.
"I think the left often pivots to gun laws," he said on
"Your World With Neil Cavuto" Thursday.
"But the truth is states like California have very strict gun laws, as they do in Illinois — in Chicago, as they do in Washington, D.C., as they do in many other jurisdictions that have a significant amount gun violence. So it's never been shown that these gun laws have been effective other than keeping guns out of the hands of law-abiding citizens."
In a fundraising email, Politico reports, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul blasts President Barack Obama and Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton for "exploiting" the California massacre to push new anti-gun laws.
"They're exploiting the deaths of innocent Americans to further their plans to dismantle the Second Amendment, destroy conservatives, and as we saw today, attack faith and prayer. The victims are just another helpful talking point to the left," the email states, Politico reports.
Former business executive Carly Fiorina, meanwhile, argues the government can't be trusted to enforce the kinds of gun restrictions Democrats have proposed, such as a ban on gun purchased by those on the FBI's terrorism watch list.
"We're not enforcing the laws we have," she said on
MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program.
"If somebody is a suspected terrorist on a watch list, they can be indicted at any time, and once you're indicted, you cannot own a firearm. This is a red herring to suggest that we should have background checks for those on the terror watch list. Why aren't these people prosecuted?"
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said ultimately, limiting gun access is not what has to be done to stop terror attacks on U.S. soil.
"The answer is going to be that we have to identify people before they come to the country," he said Thursday on Fox News Channel's
"Special Report."
"Identify them if they're communicating with known terrorists outside the country. And there's ways to do that to protect civil liberties in this country, and we need to get back to that business."
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee tells Politico he doubts any law would have been able to prevent the bloodshed in California.
"If you say 'nobody can have a gun', do you think that would keep a person like that from getting a gun? Of course it wouldn't. But it would probably keep law-abiding citizens from having one," he tells Politico.
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said the California massacre had nothing to do with gun control.
"This is about two people who have bought into an ideology that is absolutely insane in nature and has to be combated," he told reporters Thursday after a speech to the Republican Jewish Coalition Forum in Washington, Politico reports.
Cruz also suggested radical Islamic terrorism was at work in the incident, though officials have not yet called it an act of terrorism.
"All of us are deeply concerned that this is yet another manifestation of terrorism — radical Islamic terrorism here at home," he said at the same forum, Politico reports.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, also at the RJC event, said he was "convinced" the shooting was a terrorist attack.
"If a center for the developmentally disabled in San Bernardino can be a target for a terrorist attack, then every place in America is a target," he said. "We need to come to grips with the idea that we are in the midst of the next world war."
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