John Kennedy knocks down calls for gun bans

Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana took aim at calls for gun control Monday while on Fox News, observing there were “hundreds” of laws already on the books.

A gunman killed five people and wounded one at a Park Avenue skyscraper in New York City before turning his gun on himself. Fox News host Sean Hannity asked Kennedy about potential calls for gun control from Democrats in the wake of the shooting.

“I’m sorry for the civilians who were killed or injured. I don’t know why bad things happen to good people. I don’t. If I make it to heaven, I’m going to ask,” Kennedy told Hannity. “I’m sorry for the police police officers who were killed or injured. I’m also thankful for those who ran to the danger and away from it. I’m grateful for them. And I am sorry for the people of New York. This is going to cause them to have to live in further fear on Capitol Hill, probably beginning in the morning, there will be the inevitable call by some of my colleagues for more gun control laws. We’ve got hundreds of gun control laws, Sean. Maybe thousands.”

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“New York has the majority of them, I live there,” Hannity responded, with Kennedy continuing, “We don’t need more gun control. We need more idiot control. And I don’t know exactly how to do that, but I do know this, I don’t want to hear anyone feeling sorry for this guy who did this. And there will be some that say, well, he was mixed up. He was confused. He was just sick. His mama or daddy didn’t love him enough. All that may be true. But from the bottom of my heart, I don’t care. I believe there’s objective evil in this world and we saw it today.”

Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres of New York called for a ban on certain semi-automatic firearms Monday during an appearance on “CNN NewsNight,” less than four hours after the shooting.

“I find it to be absolute insanity that we allow weapons of war to just flow freely on the streets of America. And even though New York State and New York City have the strictest gun laws in the nation, those gun laws can only take you so far” Torres claimed as he demanded a ban on so-called “assault weapons.”

The National Shooting Sports Foundation estimated that over 24 million “modern sporting rifles,” which include the AR-15, are “in circulation” in a July 2022 release.

Rifles of any type were used in 523 homicides in 2023, according to the FBI’s 2023 Uniform Crime Report Data Explorer. Knives were used in 1,630 killings, “other” weapons were used in 1,231 homicides and personal weapons (defined as hands, fists and feet) were used in 731 killings, according to the data.

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