During the November 25 airing of Fox News’ Special Report, French Ambassador to the United States Gerard Araud countered Donald Trump’s emphasis on the importance of an armed citizenry by claiming that armed citizens succeed in defending themselves “only in the movies.”
Araud was specifically reacting to a tweet sent after the January 7 Charlie Hebdo attacks in which Trump wrote, “Isn’t it interesting that the tragedy in Paris took place in one of the toughest gun control countries in the world?” Talking Points Memo reported that Araud responded to the tweet by calling Trump a “vulture,” then deleted the tweet after attacking Trump.
On Special Report, Araud admitted sending and deleting the tweet containing the word “vulture,” but made clear that he still stands by it. And he brought in the example of the November 13 attacks, as well–where gunmen entered a “theater hall” and opened fire–saying, “It was a theater, a theater hall. Imagine a theater hall and suddenly people enter with machine guns and are really killing people. … It is only in the movies someone is using his gun to defend himself.”
On November 15, Breitbart News reported that Trump addressed the 130 people killed in the Paris attacks by pointing out, “You can say what you want, but if [the French people] had guns, if our people had guns, it would have been a much, much different situation.”
On November 22, Trump doubled down, saying, “If in Paris some of those people had guns, you wouldn’t have had the horror show that you had where [none of the innocents] had guns.”
Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.