Mark Kelly reacts to San Bernardino mass shooting: ‘Makes no sense’
Following the shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., at the Inland Regional Center, a facility that serves people with developmental disabilities, Yahoo Global Anchor Katie Couric spoke to Mark Kelly, the husband of former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who survived an assassination attempt in 2011. Both Kelly and Giffords have become gun control advocates since that shooting, founding Americans for Responsible Solutions.
Kelly told Couric, “When you hear that 14 people were killed in a mass shooting, you immediately think of not only the victims who were deceased, but of their families. Having struggled through this with what happened to Gabby with the families there and other families in other situations like this, they’re going to have a really tough time for a long period of time.”
Kelly added, “One thing seems clear: This was planned out and was very well organized.”
Kelly also weighed in on the debate surrounding mental illness and gun laws. He said, “I think for somebody to be adjudicated as mentally ill and for someone who might be going through some emotional or mental issues at any given time … it is certainly a factor in a lot of the mass shootings that we see. … But, you know, mass shootings don’t add up to a lot of the deaths we see each year from gun violence. It’s more the daily toll it takes in our community, things like inner-city gang violence or domestic violence or just other random acts that happen. I mean, that’s where the big numbers are. Whether it’s a red herring or not, I don’t know, but it is the thing the gun lobby will often point to — that this is a mental health issue and we ought to address that first. It’s one of the things that need to be addressed, but it’s just one component of it.”
Kelly had not spoken to his wife since the San Bernardino shooting, but in general these shootings “make her sad.” He continued, “At the same time, it’s obviously strong evidence, and it should be to everybody that we need to do something about it. Why do we have 15 to 20 times the rate of gun violence than any other industrialized country? Makes no sense. The sad thing is we can actually do something about it, but our politicians choose not to act in many cases.”
