Trump calls to condemn ‘white supremacy’ after shootings
President pledges to take steps to stop ‘evil contagion’ after weekend attacks
Donald Trump has said the US must “condemn racism, bigotry and white supremacy” in the wake of two mass shootings over the weekend that claimed at least 29 lives.
“These sinister ideologies must be defeated,” Mr Trump said from the White House on Monday, speaking about the attacks in Texas and Ohio. “Hate has no place in America. Hatred warps the mind, ravages the heart, and devours the soul.”
In the 20 years since the deadly school shooting in Columbine, Colorado, “our nation has watched with rising horror and dread as one mass
shooting has followed another over and over again decade after decade,” Mr Trump said. “We can and will stop this evil contagion.”
While Mr Trump called for “bipartisan solutions”, he focused on factors that contribute to shootings — such as mental health issues and the “glorification of violence” from video games — rather than measures that would make it harder for people to obtain the kinds of weapons that were used to kill 20 in El Paso and nine in Dayton.
“We must reform our mental health laws to better identify mentally disturbed individuals who may commit acts of violence,” Mr Trump said. “Mental Illness and hatred pulls the trigger, not the gun.”
The Texas and Ohio attacks brought the number of mass shootings in the US this year to 255 while the number of people who have died from gun violence rose to 8,782, according to the Gun Violence Archive. The deadly shootings came as the number of hate crimes in the US continues to rise — a trend that Democrats argue has been exacerbated by Mr Trump because of his incendiary and racist language.
In a manifesto written before his attack, the suspect in El Paso — a predominantly Hispanic city in Texas on the border with Mexico — wrote about an “Hispanic invasion”.his language echoed rhetoric that Mr Trump has repeatedly used both on Twitter and at political rallies since launching his presidential campaign in 2015.