Trump calls Chicago a “disaster” when it comes to gun violence

WASHINGTON – GOP White House hopeful Donald Trump called gun violence in Chicago a “disaster” on Friday, despite tough laws, commenting in the wake of the murders of two journalists in Virginia.

Trump’s remark came during an interview on Friday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” when Willie Geist asked about the shooting deaths in Roanoke that Trump had called a mental health – not a gun law – problem.

Asked if more restrictions on guns were needed Trump said,

“No, I don’t think you need further gun restrictions. They have restrictions. If you look at a place like Chicago, Willie, it’s got the single toughest gun laws in the United States and it’s a disaster. They’re having in certain areas of Chicago. Chicago sort of a tale of two of cities. But in certain areas of Chicago, there’s tremendous gun violence. More than just about any place.

“You look at Baltimore, they have very strong gun laws. You look at these places that are going wild with killings all over and they have very, very powerful gun laws, laws that you would say, I mean, you should not have any killings whatsoever if they worked. The fact is it’s not the laws. You have a tremendous problem with crime. You have a tremendous problem with mental health. And in this case it was pure mental health.

“And it’s amazing that all of these guys that do these things, and we certainly see plenty of them, it’s incredible to me that somebody doesn’t come out. Because they really could see he was a sick guy two, three, four years ago. Every place he worked he had problems. And very severe problems. And yet nobody comes out and reports him,” Trump said.

Trump said enough laws are on the books.

“If you look we actually have strong laws on the books. And again, you look at places like Chicago. Look at New York City. In New York City, we have among the toughest gun laws in the country and we have gun violence. It’s a real problem. But we have the laws. So you have to make the laws work. The government is not making the laws work. But beyond that, you do have a huge mental health problem. There’s no question about it.”