Steve King So Sad Everyone In Orlando Nightclub Wasn't Carrying A Loaded Gun

Oh man! It sure seems like the Federation for American Immigration Reform’s annual "Hold Their Feet To The Fire" radio row last week was a real swingin' time! Yesterday, we brought you Sheriff Joe Arpaio guffawing at how funny it is that anyone thinks it's not super cool to let prison inmates swelter in tents that get up to 135 degrees in the Arizona summer and discussing his plans to put tiny American flags on prison uniforms, for reasons.

Today? Well, today we have Steve King! Steve King saying a very stupid thing, in the grand tradition of Steve King.

[WONKBAR]  [/WONKBAR]Now, surely one of your first thoughts, following the mass shooting at Pulse Nightclub, was "Gee! What does Iowa Representative Steve King think about all this?" Probably right after you wondered what Sarah Palin was thinking. 

As it turns out, Steve King was thinking that this whole darn thing could have been avoided if not for Florida's strict gun control (LOL) measures which allow bars to decide for themselves whether or not they would like to allow firearms on the premises. Because if everyone there had a gun, then like, all those drunk people could have easily taken down the shooter themselves and gotten back to dancing in no time.

Via RightWingWatch :

“I look at this and I think, we have a constitutional right to keep and bear arms and the problem in Orlando at the Pulse was not a problem of the gun laws,” King said, criticizing efforts in Congress to bolster gun regulations after the shooting. “I mean, he followed all of them, the FBI interrogated him at least three times, they decided that he wasn’t enough of a risk. He wouldn’t have been on a list anyway. So anything that they might propose to do would not have prevented the tragedy, the horrific, gruesome tragedy in Orlando, and yet they would trample on the very rights that are needed for people to protect themselves.”

He continued, “If everybody in that nightclub, at the Pulse, had been armed, if everybody had a gun, I would say this: I don’t think anybody would have gotten shot. [In the] first place, I don’t think the perpetrator walks in there. If he does walk in there, then we may have, but there would’ve been a lot fewer than the 102.”

Or more! Considering that it was a dark bar and people were drunk, and it's pretty unlikely that a bunch of drunk people in a chaotic situation are gonna be really good at shooting the right guy. Perhaps Steve King has never been in a bar. After all, he is a wholesome Christian fella. But, as a heathen frequenter of drinking establishments, I can honestly tell you that there have been many instances in which I was very glad that an agitated drunk person who was asked to leave for being an agitated drunk person did not have a gun. Trust me, you will never meet any bartender on earth who thinks it would be awesome if people could bring guns into the bar. Even ones who happen to like guns themselves. Because drunk people + firearms = things going very, very wrong and escalating very, very quickly.

It is fairly likely that Steve King's ideas about guns in bars being an awesome thing for everyone came from the same place it usually does for people like Steve King -- movies about the WILD WEST! Except the thing is... uh, the "Wild West" actually had stricter gun control laws than Florida does now. WHOOPS!

Unfortunately, life is not a movie. And no matter how much the idea of a bunch of armed (and drunk) citizens taking out a gunman may give you a Second Amendment Boner, that is just not how things work in real life. To boot, the only way this "plan" would work would be if everyone were literally required to own a gun and carry it with them at all times, everywhere, and that's not very freedom-y now is it?

[ RightWingWatch ]