Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) says the father of the Umpqua Community College assailant who killed 9 people and wounded 7 others is misguided in his calls for gun control.
“I absolutely believe he has no right to be lecturing the rest of us,” Jindal said on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday. “Look, gun control is not going to solve this.”
{mosads}The Republican presidential hopeful derided Ian Mercer, the father of the gunman, for not being involved in his son’s life.
“He, by his own admission, didn’t know how his son got those guns, didn’t know how many guns his son had, by his own admission wasn’t involved in his son’s life, hadn’t been communicating with him since he was living with his mother,” Jindal said. “He doesn’t need to be lecturing us on gun control.”
Jindal called Mercer a “complete failure” as a father last week, comments some perceived as insensitive.
The Louisiana governor said a “moral decay” in the U.S., including the proliferation of violent movies and video games, played a part in the community college shooting earlier this month.
“We have a moral decay going on in our culture,” Jindal said. “We’ve got graphic violence in our movies, our video games, our TV shows. We have got senseless violence being depicted in our songs. We’ve got a culture that doesn’t value life.”
“We’ve got millions of boys growing up without father figures, without that guidance at home,” he added.