Rick Santorum said the entertainment industry — and former President Barack Obama — were at least partially to blame for last week’s mass shooting in Las Vegas.
The Republican former senator-turned-CNN analyst agreed that fully automatic weapons should be regulated, but he blamed Obama for failing to enforce a ban on weapons modifications like the gunman used to murder 58 concertgoers and wound hundreds more.
“The Obama administration did not enforce that law when the bump stocks came to light in 2010, (and) they probably should have,” Santorum said. “The Obama administration very easily ignores the law on things like DACA, which is, against the law, and says we’ll ignore the law.”
The failed GOP presidential candidate, who appeared Sunday as a panelist on CNN’s “State of the Union,” then suggested violent entertainment may have influenced the 64-year-old gunman.
“Violence in television and the video games — there is a mountain of evidence out there, psychological evidence, about what we’re doing to our young people with these video games, violent video games, and you never hear the left trying to go after Hollywood or the gaming market,” Santorum said. “It is never involved in this discussion. Where is the solution? Here we are. Where is the solution?”
He complained that Democrats had inaccurately blamed firearms for gun violence instead of movies.
“Always gun control,” Santorum said. “It is never about the violence we have in our society, it is never about what Hollywood, you know, contribution to that.”