The nation doesn't have so much of a problem with gun control as it does with "sin and evil," GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said Monday.
"I think we always talk about what the weapon was, but whether it's a pressure cooker or whether it's a gun, we're dealing with people who are either deranged or they're very focused because they want to kill people in the name of terrorism," the former Arkansas governor, an ordained Southern Baptist minister, told
CNN's "New Day" program.
"This is an evil thing, when people kill another person. It happens way too often."
Huckabee said that in the case of last week's shootings in Oregon, the shooter was able to stockpile 13 weapons because nobody reported the warning signs about him.
"He was able to do it because nobody really reported any of the signs," he said. "This guy apparently was a loner. He exhibited some traits of behavior and attitudes that were warning signals, but nobody acted upon them."
Huckabee noted that in New York City, there are posters that say "if you see something, say something," and that's what he believes people should do, even if it's a member of their own families.
At the same time, Huckabee emphasized that parents are becoming afraid of sending their children to schools, but statistically, they are not dangerous places.
"Two million times a year, the presence of a gun in the hands of a legal gun owner stops a crime, a violent crime," said Huckabee. "We never hear that part of it.'
Declaring gun-free sites are not the action, he said, because it "just gives the shooter a real confidence that he walks into that environment and he's the only one armed. Even in this case, it turns out that he shot himself. It was only when the police confronted him that he did that."