Bloomberg calls GOP lawmaker’s remarks on shooting ‘nonsensical’

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg blasted Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.) for the lawmaker’s suggestion Friday that an armed moviegoer could have halted the Colorado movie theater shooting that left a dozen dead and 70 wounded.

“You know, to arm everybody and have the Wild West all the time is one of the more nonsensical things you can say,” Bloomberg said in an interview set to air on CBS’s “Face the Nation” when asked about Gohmert’s argument. “I don’t know what his motives are, I don’t know him and I’m not here to impugn him or anybody else. It just does not make any sense. The bottom line is if we had fewer guns, we would have a lot fewer murders.”

During an interview Friday with the Heritage Foundation’s “Istook Live,” Gohmert suggested that had an armed audience member “could have stopped this guy more quickly.”

{mosads}“It does make me wonder, you know, with all those people in the theater, was there nobody that was carrying? That could have stopped this guy more quickly?” Gohmert said. “I mean, in Tyler, Texas, we had, in my hometown, we had a shooter come in over a domestic matter and just start shooting people, and it was a guy with a concealed carry. He got killed, but his shooting at this guy caused him to run and no doubt saved a lot of lives. He was a real hero.”

But Bloomberg rejected that argument in his interview with CBS.

”Do you really think that you’d be safe if anyone in the audience could pull out a gun and start shooting? I don’t think so,” Bloomberg said.

On Friday, Bloomberg — a strident anti-gun advocate — criticized presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Barack Obama for not detailing their beliefs on gun control in the wake of the Colorado tragedy, which has 

“I mean, there are so many murders with guns every day — it’s just got to stop,” he continued. “And instead of the two people — President Obama and Gov. Romney — talking in broad things about they want to make the world a better place — OK, tell us how. And this is a real problem. No matter where you stand on the Second Amendment, no matter where you stand on guns, we have a right to hear from both of them concretely, not just in generalities — specifically, what are they going to do about guns?”

Gohmert, meanwhile, made headlines Friday for tying the violence to “the ongoing attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs.”

“You know, what really gets me, as a Christian, is to see the ongoing attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs, and then some senseless crazy act of a derelict takes place,” Gohmert said.