Donald Trump Defends Orlando Shooting Comments From NRA Criticism

Presumptive GOP nominee says he meant “additional guards or employees” should have been armed, not Pulse nightclub patrons

Donald Trump Addresses Faith And Freedom Coalition Road To Majority Conference
WASHINGTON, DC – JUNE 10: Presumptive Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks during the Faith and Freedom Forum Coalition's "Road to Majority" conference on June 10, 2016 in Washington, DC. Trump used a teleprompter to deliver his speech to the religious conference. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Donald Trump is on the defensive, responding to the National Rifle Association’s claim that his recent statement about the Orlando nightclub shooting “defies common sense.”

Trump suggested at a Texas rally that if some of the people inside Pulse nightclub in Orlando were armed, they could have prevented the deadliest mass shooting in American history. Trump said it would have been a “beautiful sight” to see them shoot “the son of a bitch.”

“When I said that if, within the Orlando club, you had some people with guns, I was obviously talking about additional guards or employees,” Trump tweeted Monday.

The presumptive GOP nominee’s most recent statement seems to contradict an argument he made during a CNN appearance last week.  “Even if you had a number of people having them strapped to their ankle or strapped to their waist, where bullets could have flown in the other direction right at him, you wouldn’t have had the same kind of a tragedy,” Trump said.

Chris Cox, executive director of the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action, told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday that “no one thinks that people should go into a nightclub drinking and carrying firearms.”

“That defies common sense,” he said. “It also defies the law.”

The NRA has endorsed Trump for president, but the recent terror attach in Orlando has Trump talking about making it harder for bad guys to obtain guns. Trump urged the powerful gun lobby to agree to banning people on terrorism watch lists from buying guns.

“We have to make sure that people that are terrorists or have even an inclination toward terrorism cannot buy weapons, guns,” Trump told “This Week.”

The Senate will vote on a series of gun-control measures Monday.

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