First of all, we stand with Nice. Those French citizens were innocents, and our thoughts are with their friends and families, along with France as a whole. On Thursday, July 15, 2016, also known as Bastille Day in France, a large truck swept through a crowded, main street in Nice as citizens celebrated. The driver killed at least 84 people, and around 50 were badly injured.
Recently, Newt Gingrich shared his thoughts on the most recent attacks in France on a video call with Fox News. Fox News is known for being the conservative Republican news outlet, so it’s not surprising to hear chuckling coming from the news anchor as Gingrich says that he “fully expect[s] by tomorrow morning that President Obama will ... give a press conference in which he'll explain that the problem is too many trucks. If only we had truck regulation then we wouldn't have problems like Nice, because it is trucks that are dangerous.”
He goes on to bring up the Orlando shooting at Pulse nightclub and criticizes President Barack Obama on his reaction to that day. Obama discussed the need for gun control in a press conference as he addressed the Orlando shooting. First of all, even if it is a person working on behalf of ISIL or a drunk driver that plows into a crowded area, lives are lost that shouldn’t have been lost, and Gingrich needs to implant some more compassion into his words and stop.
Gingrich’s approach is to make a slight joke on the President’s behalf, hours after the deadly attack in Nice, and somehow thread it back into the Orlando shooting and chant out his pro-gun views, solely looking at the truck in the picture. What Gingrich didn’t know at the time is that police found firearms and explosives in the back of the truck. Police had shot and killed the driver before any of the lethal weapons could have been employed.
Gingrich’s words are not going to save anyone from gun violence. Stop poking fun at Obama when at least 84 people have lost their lives because of a truck. Making an observation like that and bringing it back to gun violence is not doing anything.
Yes, the truck was the weapon is this situation. A vehicle is a weapon in many situations. If the attacker would not have been killed as promptly as he was, the causalities would have grown even faster because of his hidden guns. No, there isn’t much that we can physically do for Nice, but we can pay attention to our disastrous world and learn from it. Gun control is not here to snatch all of your guns away, people. Gun control would insert rules and regulations to help save many.
President Obama once was asked by a gun owner at a local town hall meeting why he wanted to take Americans’ guns away. Respectfully, he told the man that he didn’t want to disarm him. He wants to control who can access guns and make the country safer. He compared it to cars and how the government began to learn about safety regarding motor vehicles. Regulations and safety rules were put down, like seat belts and airbags, because the government learned more about cars. It was a learning game, and so is gun control.
Newt Gingrich poked fun at the Nice attack, and that isn’t okay. He criticized Obama’s interest in gun control, and that isn’t okay. The world is falling apart around, and we need to do something about it.
