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Scarborough: 'I Think Gun-Free Zones Are the Stupidest Idea'

January 8, 2016

MSNBC host Joe Scarborough called the concept of gun-free zones "the stupidest idea" Friday on Morning Joe.

Republican frontrunner Donald Trump said he opposed the idea during a rally Thursday in Burlington, Vermont, and Scarborough, a former GOP congressman who generally bucks the party orthodoxy on gun rights, smiled after a clip played of Trump saying, "No more gun-free zones."

"I think gun-free zones are the stupidest idea, and here I'm the guy that the NRA in Washington supposedly hates," Scarborough said. "Why don't you, on college campuses, where you put gun-free zones, why don't you just put up a sign that says, 'Free to shoot?'"

Liberal co-host Mika Brzezinski sighed throughout his remarks.

"I mean, seriously, a guy that's going to come and do harm at a college is going to say, 'Oh, it's a gun-free zone? I need to take my Bushmaster back. Hey! The pipe bombs, we can't bring them on campus!' That's stupid," Scarborough said.

Former Obama official Steve Rattner asked Scarborough whether he thought all kids should be armed in class in that case.

"I'm not comfortable with it, but at the same time, I think advertising gun-free zones is a genuinely stupid thing that invites bad people to do really bad things," Scarborough said.

Scarborough added that the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007 wouldn't have happened to the same extent at the University of Alabama, his alma mater, with the gun policies in place there.