Ohio Governor and Republican presidential candidate John Kasich stated, “I don’t think more laws are going to fix this” in a discussion on gun control on Tuesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “Wolf.”
After being asked if people should be allowed to buy firearms from gun shows or private distributors without background checks, Kasich stated, “you’re supposed to be held accountable if you are involved in a private sale, but I don’t know how you’re going to regulate private sales. What I do think we need is a good database.”
After anchor Wolf Blitzer cut in to say that such regulation is done with cars, Kasich objected that cars are “a different situation, to me, and it’s not that simple.”
Kasich continued, “The problem is, I don’t think, the lack of gun laws, I think the problem is we have a society where people become increasingly isolated. They become estranged, they have no family, they don’t have much community. This is kind of a breakdown in what we grew up with Wolf, which was a community where we all cared about one another. I, as you know, I’ve been involved and invested a lot to help the issue of mental illness in Ohio. It’s one of the reasons I expanded Medicaid, so the communities are strong. It’s those kind of things, because if you focus on the guns, you’re missing the bigger picture, which is the fact that people have been isolated, estranged, and to try to take away guns, I don’t think is going to solve the problem.”
He further stated, “there’s a private issue here, Wolf, I mean, if I’m going to sell you a gun, do I have to go through the — through all this checking? I mean, there’s — I’m supposed to have some responsibility, as they are at the gun show, and hey should exercise that responsibility. But I don’t think more laws are going to fix this.”
Kasich concluded the discussion on firearms with, “Every one of these folks have been people who have been estranged, isolated, with a family that doesn’t know what to do with them. And just reading about the mom of this latest mass murderer, what you see is, she felt that she couldn’t control her son, there was no way for anybody to intervene. That’s what we have to get to, the root cause of this. … We need to love our neighbors, and be there to help them. And I think sometimes people feel lonely, estranged, they’re outcasts, and then they take action. That’s what we need to get to the root of in this country.”
Earlier, while discussing policy towards Afghanistan, Kasich stated he would “convene all the military experts you have, the civilian experts, and figure out how we stabilize the situation, and we wouldn’t be sending a signal that we’re just going to get out of there.”
He added, “we don’t need to build up the force. I’m a believer that we should use special forces effectively to go after the Taliban wherever they are, but I wouldn’t precipitously draw this, or say we’re just going to have a thousand there by the end of the Obama presidency. But, this again is a place you sit down. I served on the Armed Services Committee for 18 years. I’ve been involved in defense issues almost all of my life, in the Pentagon after 9/11 helping to bring technology people in. This is a place where you sit down and figure out the right strategy, what are your options. And if you start predicting what they’re going to be without those conversations, I think you come up short.”
Kasich continued, “initially when we did the expansion, I wouldn’t have supported that. I mean, if I were president, I would have questioned advisers about the need to be able to go to problem areas, not try to occupy the country or build up the forces, but to be able to respond wherever the crisis is at any moment in time with elite troops that have lethality mobility.”
He also called for a no-fly zone in Syria and argued the US should have supported the rebels “years ago.” Kasich further stated it would be clear to everyone not to fly in this no-fly zone after he was asked what he would do if Russia violated it.
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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