Col. Ralph Peters: ‘Founding Fathers Didn’t Want Every Juiced-Up Psycho’ to Have Machine Guns

Retired Col. Ralph Peters appeared on Fox Business Network the morning after the mass shooting in Las Vegas that killed at least 50 people and injured hundreds more, to talk guns with host Stuart Varney.

Peters first discussed the “careful” planning that must have been carried out by 64-year-old shooter Stephen Paddock, who “had an arsenal of at least 10 rifles in the room, according to the sheriff’s department.”

“But Stuart, let’s face it: this was an act of terror,” Peters declared. “Just because it was not motivated by religion or didn’t necessarily have political ends doesn’t make a difference. It was an act of terror because it terrorized. It was intended to terrorize, to punish a population.”

Peters continued that his concern was that “this lone-wolf terrorism is becoming the default position of self-affirmation, self-expression across the world.”

Varney then asked how these sorts of attacks can be stopped, noting some people would argue that if there were more guns on the ground, the shooting could have been thwarted.

“The idea that an armed crowd, would have made a difference — if it made any difference it would have been worse,” Peters replied.

“I am a gun owner,” he continued. “I will always be a gun-owner. But the founding fathers didn’t want every juiced-up psycho to have a machine-gun collection.”

“We need to look at what kind of weapons they had – clearly this guy had military-grade weapons — and where he got them. Because automatic rifles are illegal for the average citizen to own.”

Peters and Varney went on to discuss the “volume of fire” Paddock was putting out, speculating that he had a “drum magazine.”

“This should not have happened,” Peters concluded. “But as you just noted Stuart, how could we have prevented it?”

[image via screengrab]

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