Larry Pratt, the executive director of Gun Owners of America, took issue with President Obama’s comment last week that the U.S. is “the only advanced country on Earth” that sees such a frequency of mass shootings, including the recent shooting that killed ten people in Oregon.
Pratt told Florida talk radio host Joyce Kaufman yesterday that Europe, where some countries have stricter gun laws than the U.S., is actually “the most bloody place in the world” because of the wars that took place there in the 20th century.
“What he’s not, and apparently very few people have really taken into consideration, is that Europe has been in the last 50, 60 years the most bloody place in the world, perhaps with the exception of Communist China and maybe Soviet Russia,” Pratt said. “But tens of millions of people have been killed in wars and in concentration camps and if you throw Soviet Union … into Europe, then we really are talking about Europe being just about on the top of the bloody list. And we’re supposed to pretend as if none of these things every happened.”
Pratt seemed to suggest that the U.S. has avoided such wars because of rampant gun ownership, saying, “Another aspect of this to consider is that we have not have rogue governments do what rogue governments did in Europe.”
But, he said, it is “not for want of trying” that the U.S. government hasn’t gone rogue, citing the 1946 Battle of Athens and the armed standoff at the Bundy ranch in Nevada.
Pratt and Kaufman also falsely suggested that Umpqua Community College, where the recent shooting took place, was a gun-free zone. Oregon law doesn’t allow public colleges to ban guns, and several students were carrying concealed weapons at the time of the shooting.
“Mr. President,” Pratt said, “you and your Democrat Party are the chief purveyors of gun-free zones. Repent!”
