President Trump on Friday reiterated his claim that the 2015 terrorist attacks at the Bataclan nightclub in Paris might have been avoided if some concertgoers had been armed.
“Paris, France, they say has the strongest gun laws in the world,” Trump said Friday during his speech to gun rights advocates at the National Rifle Association’s (NRA) annual convention in Indianapolis.
“If there was one gun being carried by one person on the other side, it very well could have been a whole different result. The shooting went on so long and there wasn’t a thing you could do about it,” he said.{mosads}
Trump used his fingers to emulate a gun being fired, saying, “Get over here, boom. Here, boom. And then they left. They were captured later.”
The president added that if a “tiny percent” of concertgoers had been able to carry weapons, the attack “probably wouldn’t have happened because the cowards would have known there were people and they’re having guns.”
Trump has weighed in before on the shooting, which left 90 people dead. Coordinated attacks from Islamist extremists at a concert hall, stadium, restaurants and bars killed 130 people and injured hundreds more on Nov. 13, 2015.
The president made very similar comments last year while speaking at the NRA conference in Dallas and was later condemned by the French government.
“France expresses its firm disapproval of the comments by President Trump about the attacks of November 13, 2015 in Paris and asks for respect of the memory of the victims,” French foreign ministry spokeswoman Agnes von der Muhll said of Trump’s remarks at the time.
Former French President François Hollande also denounced “the shameful comments and obscene antics of Donald Trump.”
“The friendship between our peoples will not be stained by this disrespect and outrageousness. All my thoughts are for the victims of the November 13 attacks,” Hollande said last year.