Chris Christie: Democratic Gun Control Proposals Are Like 'Cotton Candy'
While both President Obama and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton have called for stricter gun control measures in the wake of the recent shooting attacks in California and Colorado, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said such proposals are nothing more than "cotton candy" that might taste good but won't actually make the country safer.
"What Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama propose is cotton candy. ... It has no relationship to anything that will help to make the body of the country safer or better," the Republican presidential candidate said in a radio interview with Hugh Hewitt on Friday. "Just like eating cotton candy, nothing good for the body, just makes you feel good for a couple of minutes."
Christie accused President Obama of trying to use this week's attack on the San Bernardino facility as "an excuse for greater gun control" and said the attack, which was carried out by a husband-wife team, is proof that he was right when he said that no Syrian refugees -- not even women or orphaned children -- should be allowed into the U.S.
"We now know from San Bernardino, just a couple of days ago, that women are very capable of being involved in terrorist activity," Christie told a forum of Americans for Peace Prosperity and Security in Fort Dodge, Iowa, on Friday. "And the widow who comes over here from Syria, if aligned with ISIS or another organization, could create just as much death as any man given the weapons that are available now."
President Obama had previously mocked Christie's blanket opposition to all Syrian refugees to say that the Republican presidential candidates must be "scared of widows and orphans." But on Friday, Christie returned fire.
"I wonder if the president is going to stand up and call me a tough guy today and insult me again," he told Hewitt. "You know, the fact is I know a little bit about this stuff and the President of the United States should open his ears more and open his mouth less."
Christie, who served as a federal prosecutor in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, has been emphasizing his national security background as a key selling point on the campaign trail in the wake of the attack in Paris and now San Bernardino. And as he watched the reporting on the attack unfold in California this week, Christie said, it only took him a matter of hours to conclude that it was terrorism.
"I have a lot of experience in prosecuting terrorism cases," Christie said at the forum in Fort Dodge. "After about an hour and half of watching news coverage on TV, I turned to wife and said this is terrorist attack."
