Trump on Paris Attacks: If 25 People Had Guns, 'It Would've Been a Totally Different Story'

Presidential candidate and bargain bin full of yellowing Jean-Claude Van Damme movies Donald Trump has become more and more enthusiastic about guns. That enthusiasm coincides with him trying to become president, and it’s unchecked by minor considerations like good taste. Trump declared Monday that if 25 people killed in Paris had guns, “it would have been a totally different story.”

Trump managed to stay restrained and respectful about the massive loss of life in Paris for a little less than a day:

On Saturday, at a rally in Beaumont, Texas, he said the massacre would have been “much different” if the Parisians were armed, blaming the country’s tough gun control laws in part for the tragedy. From CNN:

“When you look at Paris — you know the toughest gun laws in the world, Paris — nobody had guns but the bad guys. Nobody had guns. Nobody,” Trump said at a rally here. “They were just shooting them one by one and then they (security forces) broke in and had a big shootout and ultimately killed the terrorists.”

“You can say what you want, but if they had guns, if our people had guns, if they were allowed to carry —” Trump said, pausing as the crowd erupted into raucous applause, “— it would’ve been a much, much different situation.”

By Monday, during a rally in Knoxville, Tennessee, Trump had refined the number of people who needed guns to 25, minimum:

“You have the horrible attack. And by the way, Paris is one of the places in the world that’s toughest on guns… If 20 of those people — you don’t need more, but could’ve been more, could’ve been all of them. But if 20 of those people that were shot, viciously — and if you heard the stories, ‘Come on over, boom, come on over, boom, come here, boom,” one after another after another, hundreds of people, plenty are dying and will be dead. Now, if you had 25 people in there that had guns, okay? It would have been a totally different story, folks. There would have been the shootout at the O.K. Corral.”

Earlier this year, good guys did indeed avert an attack aboard a Paris train: three Americans, including two off-duty members of the U.S. Armed Forces. It’s hard to imagine that 25 panicked civilians with guns would’ve been successful against armed terrorists wearing suicides vests. But then, we don’t possess Donald Trump’s unique vision.

Trump speaking in Knoxville, November 16, 2015. Photo via AP Images