Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney on Thursday said no new gun control laws were necessary after the massacre in Aurora, Colorado because Timothy McVeigh killed 168 in Oklahoma City with a bomb made of fertilizer — but in that case, Congress did eventually regulate the sale of ammonium nitrate.

“I don’t support new gun laws in our country,” Romney told CNN’s Piers Morgan. “I think that the effort to continue to look for some law to somehow make violence go away is missing the point.”

ADVERTISEMENT

“The real point has to relate to individuals that are deranged, distressed, and to find them, to help them, and to keep them from carrying out terrible acts,” he added. “Timothy McVeigh. How many people did he kill? With fertilizer?”

“With products that can be purchased legally anywhere in the world, he was able to carry out vast mayhem. Somehow thinking that laws against the instruments of violence would make violence go away, I think is misguided.”

In fact, a law regulating ammonium nitrate sales was signed by President George W. Bush 12 years after the Oklahoma City Bombing. The Secure Handling of Ammonium Nitrate Act of 2007 required the licensing of ammonium nitrate facilities and registration for buyers.

“Transactions involving the sale or transfer of ammonium nitrate will be regulated at the point of sale and procedures for reporting a theft or loss of ammonium nitrate will be established,” according to the Department of Homeland Security.

“Each purchaser and seller will be required to apply for an Ammonium Nitrate (AN) Registered User Number with the Department, and each applicant will be screened against the Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB).”

ADVERTISEMENT

Watch this video from CNN’s Piers Morgan Tonight, broadcast July 27, 2012.