Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy (D.) said Friday that America has a "violence culture," and he expressed surprise at the idea that European countries even allow Americans to visit.
Malloy, who is the least popular governor in the entire country, has made gun control a central issue of his, co-founding States for Gun Safety to cooperate with other northeastern states to prevent gun violence. MSNBC host Chris Hayes asked Malloy whether the students who have started the "Never Again" movement after the shooting in Parkland, Fla., can sustain pressure on to enact stricter gun laws.
"I do. Listen, 25 percent of all high school students will vote in the next election. That happens year after year after year," he said. "This is a monumental change in America."
Then Malloy transitioned to a sweeping judgment on America’s culture.
"We are a gun and violence culture, and we need to get away from that," Malloy said. "The idea that European nations allow anyone from America to go to their country, given our history of this kind of violence, is really quite remarkable, particularly when you think of how our president refers to other societies and other cultures."
Malloy was apparently referring to President Donald Trump’s reported comment that countries such as Haiti are "s—holes." Those countries were not in Europe, however, while the country Trump reportedly praised was Norway, which is in Europe.
Malloy went on to say that gun control has momentum because of how many images and recordings there are that show what happened during the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
"We've got to change," Malloy said. "I think there is a movement about it and, quite frankly, these wonderful students are a gigantic part of that. I think they'll sustain it."
He said bump-fire stocks, which are gun modifications that the attacker used in the Las Vegas shooting last year, should be illegal, along with unspecified guns, presumably AR-15s.
"You shouldn't be able to buy one of these instruments [guns] now that we know how lethally they can be applied in a church in, a movie, in a grammar school, in a high school," Malloy said. "We've got to make some big, big changes."
Others, such as MSNBC contributor and Princeton professor Eddie Glaude, have also linked gun violence to a deep-seated cultural problem that must be addressed. Glaude said Americans hold to a "myth" that "we can protect ourselves."