Jeb Bush says gun control won't stop gun violence
Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush says strict gun-control measures would not have prevented tragedies, like the mass shooting at a church in South Carolina.
"Florida is a pro-gun state. Gun violence has dropped. There's a reason for it," the former Florida governor told reporters Saturday after a town hall event in Nevada.
Bush touted his record on public safety though creating what he called “a balance that's focused on lowering gun violence but protecting the Second Amendment.”
The Second Amendment of the US Constitution guarantees the right to keep and bear arms.
President Barack Obama has renewed his calls for gun control following the mass shooting by a white supremacist at a historic black church in Charleston last week that left nine black worshipers dead, including a pastor.
During a funeral ceremony held Friday for the victims of the shooting, Obama said Americans have for too long been "blind" to the "unique mayhem" caused by gun violence in the US.
Following a 2012 mass shooting at an elementary school in Connecticut, Obama pushed for gun laws reform, including expanded background checks and a ban on high-capacity magazines, but the measures failed to advance in the Senate two years ago.
Bush, a frontrunner in the polls for the 2016 presidential race, argued that none of the gun control proposals backed by President Obama would have stopped the recent mass shootings.
"Every one of them, there's not been a single thing that he's proposed recently that would have changed the course of any of these tragic cases," he said.
Every year, more than 30,000 people are shot and killed in the United States.
The US averages 87 gun deaths each day as a function of gun violence, with an average of 183 injured, according to the University of Chicago Crime Lab and the Centers for Disease Control.
About 4.5 million firearms are sold annually in the United States at a cost of 2 to 3 billion dollars.
HRJ/HRJ
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