There are already strong laws on the books where firearms are concerned, GOP front-runner Donald Trump said Friday in comments about Thursday's mass murder in Oregon, but "you're always going to have problems."
"We have millions of sick people all over the world," Trump told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program, in response to a question from correspondent Willie Geist, about what he would have done if he were president and received a call about the shooting.
"It can happen all over the world. It does happen all over the world, by the way, but this is sort of unique to this country, the school shootings and you're going to have difficulty no matter what," Trump said.
He said that most likely, the news will come out about the Oregon shooter, 26-year-old Chris Harper Mercer, like other shooters, that, "gee whiz, they were loners and they were probably sick."
Often, Trump continued, when a shooting happens, the attacker's neighbors say they saw that the person "really looked like he could be a problem," but at the same time, "it's awfully hard to put somebody in an institution for the rest of their lives based on the fact he looks like he could be a problem. It's a terrible situation, it's huge mental illness. You're going to have these things happen and it's a horrible thing to behold."
And while he realizes it's not "politically correct" to say, there will always be difficulties when it comes to the mentally ill.
"People are going to slip through the cracks and even if you did great mental health programs, people are going to slip through the cracks," said Trump. "I'm sure it's going to be found these people seem to be loners [and] they have all sort of difficulties. They call people and nobody wants to go out with them. It's the same old story. There's many people like that."
But at the same time, he said, "what are you going to do? Institutionalize everybody? So you're going to have difficulties. You're going to have difficulties with many different things, not just this. That's the way the world works and by the way, Willie, that's the way the world always has worked."
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