Perry speaks at the Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa, earlier this month. (Photo: Nati Harnik/AP)

Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry said last week’s movie theater shooting in Lafayette, La., proves America’s gun-free zones are “a bad idea” and that moviegoers should be allowed to be armed.

“I think that it makes a lot of sense to send a message across this country,” Perry told Jake Tapper on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday when asked if the former governor believed allowing moviegoers to take guns inside the theater was a way to prevent such violence. “If we believe in the Second Amendment, and we believe in people’s right to protect themselves and defend themselves and their families.”

Police say John Russell “Rusty” Houser opened fire Thursday during a screening of “Trainwreck,” killing two people and wounding nine others with a handgun he legally purchased before turning the weapon on himself.

“I believe that, with all my heart, that if you have the citizens who are well trained, and particularly in these places that are considered to be gun-free zones, that we can stop that type of activity,” Perry said, “or stop it before there’s as many people that are impacted as what we saw in Lafayette.”

The Republican hopeful also blamed the Lafayette shooting on a failure to enforce the existing gun laws, since Houser, who authorities said had a history of mental problems, should have been prevented from buying one.

“I think we have the laws in place. Enforcement of those laws is what seems to be lacking, both in Charleston and here in Lafayette, Louisiana,” Perry said. “We see individuals who are obviously mentally impacted. These are individuals who I think that somewhere, somebody didn’t do their job in the standpoint of enforcing the laws that are only on the book.”

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a fellow GOP candidate, has refused to discuss gun control in the wake of the shooting.

“Now is not the right time,” Jindal said Friday. “Let us mourn.”