On Wednesday, the co-hosts of ABC’s The View repeatedly ganged up on Republican presidential candidate John Kasich over the issue of gun control. Throughout the heated interview, Kasich stressed that mental illness was the root cause of many mass shootings that occur across the nation but the show’s cast repeatedly called for greater restrictions on gun ownership.

After Kasich highlighted efforts to expand mental health services for those in his home state of Ohio, co-host Joy Behar demanded the Republican explain “[w]hat are you going to do about guns? Let’s cut to the chase, come on.”

The Ohio governor explained that we need to “enforce the laws” currently on the books but directed his focus at the need to overhaul our nation’s mental health system:

Secondly the whole mental health data system has to be up. States need to be held accountable for it. But here's the thing that we notice with all of these folks. Because I’ve spent a lot of time trying to help people who have mental illness. You know what we find with all of them? The families are broken down. The communities are broken down. The neighbors are not there.

While Behar acknowledged the importance of providing adequate mental health services she continued to push the liberal line that guns were the true source of the problem: “But that's true of a lot of people in this country. They don't all have guns.” Michelle Collins joined in to criticize gun supporters and asserted that when an 11-year old accidentally shot his neighbor “if there wasn't a gun in the home, it wouldn't have happened it’s just plain and simple.”

For his part, Kasich defended himself against the barrage of liberal questions and explained that banning guns won’t work because “people who are law-abiding don't want to give up their guns and they have a right to protect themselves.” Not content with the Ohio governor’s answer, Collins turned her sights on the left’s favorite enemy, the NRA:

Why does the NRA have so much control over Congress?...I’m asking because to me, it seems that everyone is catering to them. And no one is taking a stand on this. Why does the NRA have so much control? Is it money?

Behar proclaimed that the NRA “own[s] the Congress” and even suggested “[m]aybe the Congress should never take money from the NRA, how would that work out?” Kasich pushed back articulated how “we can spend all of our time saying, if we take this gun away, the question is, why are these people all pretty much the same? They experience some form of mental illness. They come from families that are broken.”

As the back-and-forth continued, Whoopi Goldberg went on a long rant over Ben Carson’s reaction to the Oregon shooting before she pleaded with Kasich to agree to promote gun control if elected president:

So why is it so difficult for us to say, here's the bottom line. We're not going sell AK-47s because you can't hunt with them. You can't hunt a dear. There's nothing left. Can you do that as president?

Kasich once again had to explain that while he “voted for an assault weapons ban" "all that happened was they just changed the structure of the gun” but Goldberg wouldn’t let up and demanded “if you're president what would you do to take a hand in this” and pass more gun control?

See relevant transcript below.