Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich called for laws allowing more Americans to carry firearms in order to prevent mass shooters from maximizing causalities.
Gingrich joined Fox News host Sean Hannity on Thursday on the heels of two deadly shootings in Lewiston, Maine.
Police say 40-year-old Robert Card entered a bowling alley and later a restaurant where he massacred 18 people and wounded 13 others.
When asked about the slayings, Gingrich said more relaxed gun laws give people a better chance at defending themselves.
“I think that we’re going to have to really think through a better method of protecting people. Frankly, in states that have concealed carry and other permits … you have a much more rapid response to these kind of people who are crazy,” he said.
Gingrich said the same principle applied to the Oct. 7 slaughter of Israeli civilians who were targeted by Hamas terrorists.
“We have to have a greater ability for our citizens to protect themselves,” Gingrich told Hannity.
Gingrich noted that people in violent situations are often their own first responders, as law enforcement officers are “almost never there to stop the massacre.”
“I think we have to think about a whole new strategy because these kind of people are extraordinarily dangerous, are willing to kill others, have no sense of decency,” he said.
“And, frankly, you have to stop them as early as possible to minimize the loss of individual lives.”
Card remained at large on Friday after the first full day of a manhunt for him ended without success.
For several hours on Thursday evening, officers surrounded a home they believed Card might have been in, but the scene was later cleared, according to local media.
BOWDOIN UPDATE: Police have completely cleared the scene on Meadow Road. We haven’t heard from law enforcement officials on what they found inside the residences they searched if anything, but it appears that Robert Card is still at large. @WMTWTV pic.twitter.com/LiBIPT2slB
— Connor Clement (@connorclementtv) October 27, 2023
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.