Former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly called Sunday’s shooting in Las Vegas, which left at least 59 people dead and more than 500 people injured, “the price of freedom” in a blog post published on Monday.
In the post, O’Reilly argues that gun control laws won’t stop “psychotic gunman,” an apparent reference to 64-year-old Stephen Paddock, whom police say opened fire on a crowd of concertgoers from a high floor of a Las Vegas hotel.
“This is the price of freedom,” O’Reilly wrote. “Violent nuts are allowed to roam free until they do damage, no matter how threatening they are. The Second Amendment is clear that Americans have a right to arm themselves for protection. Even the loons.”
O’Reilly, who was fired from Fox News amid sexual assault allegations, said in his blog post that calls for gun control–which cropped up from Democrats following the shooting on Sunday night–won’t stop “psychopaths from harming people.”
Following the shooting, Democrats advocated for gun control online and eventually #GunControlNow began trending on Twitter. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who has pushed gun control since the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre, called on Congress to “get off its ass and do something.”
O’Reilly wrote that “little will be accomplished” on reforming gun laws due to the nature of the issue.
“Public safety demands logical gun laws, but the issue is so polarizing and emotional that little will be accomplished as there is no common ground,” he wrote. “The NRA and its supporters want easy access to weapons, while the left wants them banned.”
On Monday afternoon, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders evaded questions about gun control, arguing that it was not the “time or place” to discuss policy in the wake of the shooting.
