In a statement to Fox last week following the Charleston shooting, 2016 hopeful Mike Huckabee has suggested that having more guns in church was the key to preventing future acts of racially-motivated violence. Charleston mayor Joseph Riley spoke about numerous issues for The Alan Colmes Show on Thursday before saying that Huckabee’s statements were “ridiculous” and “insane.”

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“That is so nutty I can’t even talk. It’s crazy, absolutely crazy,” Riley said. “We want everybody to carry a gun and then you have everybody carrying a gun and then somebody gets upset and pull it out because they got it handy and they got mad all of a sudden and rather than argue, or take a swing at somebody, they just kill them.”

When Huckabee gave his thoughts to Todd Starnes on Friday, he voiced his disappointment with President Obama‘s call for gun control, and said that if someone else had a gun at the church, they could have stopped Dylann Roof‘s rampage. “If somebody in that prayer

meeting had a conceal carry or there had been either an off duty policeman or an on duty policemen, somebody with the legal authority to carry a firearm and could have stopped the shooter.”

On this, Riley said that he knew the people who were slaughtered, and that they would never have been the sort of people to carry concealed weapons.

“You want an 87-year old retired lady or you want a minister to be carrying a handgun or a 78-year old retired lady that used to work for the city of Charleston?” he asked. “That is so insane. You want those elderly people carrying handguns? Is that the best we can do in America? ”

You can listen to the Mayor’s interview here:

[Image via United States Navy / Screengrab]

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Tags: charleston shooting, Gun Control, Mike Huckabee