Vivek Ramaswamy has called gun control the “wrong approach” to tackling gun violence, instead blaming an “ailment at the heart and soul of our nation” just hours after a mass shooting at a school in Iowa.
On Thursday, a 17-year-old opened fire at Perry High School in Iowa, killing one sixth grader and injuring five others before officers found him dead at the scene.
Mr Ramaswamy was in Iowa that day for a campaign event, which he said was cancelled and converted into “prayer and open conversation”.
During that open conversation, Mr Ramaswamy denounced those who are calling for gun control measures, according to a video from Politico.
“You mark my words,” he said, “tomorrow, if not later today, you’re going to hear calls for, ‘Stop the guns, that’s the problem,’ sweeping under the rug, this real ailment at the heart and soul of our nation and our culture that has spread to the entire next generation and to the unit of the family: the loss of purpose.”
“That’s a false hubris, it’s a belief that we are God, that we can ultimately control this outcome without getting to the root cause of it,” Mr Ramaswamy continued. “I think that’s the wrong approach, right out of the gate. Knee-jerk policy reactions in response to a tragedy.”
Mr Ramaswamy went on to ask if the Ten Commandments could play a role in ending violence: “I wonder whether we would have the same rate of school shootings if we had the Ten Commandments still as something we were able to talk about, from our schools to our own communities.”
In announcing the prayer and open discussion on X, Mr Ramaswamy also said the US suffers from a “psychological sickness”.
“Strikingly, the first two people who spoke to us each said they “weren’t surprised” & that it was just a matter of time before something like this happened,” Mr Ramaswamy wrote on X. “We have a psychological sickness at the core of our country right now.”
However, mental health experts say the vast majority of people with mental illness will never be violent against others. A widely cited, peer-reviewed study from 2015 states that only four per cent of violence in the US can be attributed to mental illness as the sole risk factor.
“Evidence is clear that the large majority of people with mental disorders do not engage in violence against others, and that most violent behaviour is due to factors other than mental illness,” the study reads.
In fact, people with mental illness are more likely to be the victims of gun violence, as they are at increased risk for death by suicide – which makes up 61 per cent of all firearm fatalities in the US – according to the study.
