Gun laws are only followed by law-abiding people, GOP presidential candidate Marco Rubio said Tuesday, and the latest plan proposed by Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, like so many others, won't stop more tragic shootings like the one that occurred last week in Oregon.
"Criminals don't follow the law; that's why they're criminals," the Florida senator told
Fox News' "Fox & Friends" program. "We don't know a lot about the latest instance and what was wrong with this individual in particular. But we know there are two things. One is, violence is going on because our society is going through some real tumult, and the other is mental illness."
And instead of examining why the assaults are happening, politicians and advocates "want to focus on what they used to commit this crime," Rubio said.
Meanwhile, Rubio pointed out that "gun-free zone" signs advertise that locations are vulnerable, although he said he was not commenting particularly in connection to the
incident last week, in which Christopher Harper-Mercer, 26, killed his English professor and eight students at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg before turning a gun on himself, after asking his victims before shooting them if they were Christians.
Rubio also discussed the prediction he made in the second GOP debate that Russian President Vladimir Putin would order bomb strikes on ISIS rebels in Syria.
"He's trying to distract from Ukraine and get the world not to focus on what's happening there, particularly with the end of the cease-fire and all those things," Rubio said. "Also, it makes him popular in Russia to show he's a global leader."
And once the rebels are destroyed, then the argument can be made to decide between ISIS or Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and people will choose Assad.
He said that President Barack Obama's contention that Russia is making the strikes out of weakness is wrong.
"He's doing it because he senses a vacuum and he can position himself as a geopolitical equal to the United States, and perhaps even a superior in the case of the Middle East," said Rubio, while Putin is sending an argument to the world that Obama, and America under him, are weak and unreliable.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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