Trump speaks at a rally in Franklin, Tenn., on Saturday. (Photo: Mark Zaleski/AP)



Donald Trump continues to court Second Amendment supporters in the wake of last week’s deadly shooting in Oregon, suggesting the teachers at Umpqua Community College should have been armed — just like he is.

“Let me tell you, if you had a couple teachers with guns in that room, you would have been a hell of a lot better off,” Trump said at a rally in Franklin, Tenn., on Saturday. “This is about self-defense, plain and simple.”

“In fact, I have a license to carry in New York — can you believe that? Nobody knows that,” Trump continued. “Somebody attacks me, they’re gonna be shocked.”

After the event, the Republican frontrunner told reporters that he is a member of the National Rifle Association, and had consulted the group in developing his gun policy.

Trump also criticized former Florida governor Jeb Bush’s remarks about the Oregon shooting.

“He used the words ‘stuff happens,’ and I thought it was a very bad phrase to use,” Trump said, according to the Washington Post. “I actually was watching that and thought, ‘Wow, how does he use that phrase?’”

Authorities say the 26-year-old shooter, Christopher Sean Harper-Mercer, brought at least six guns and five ammunition magazines to the Roseburg, Ore., campus, where he shot and killed nine people and wounded seven others.

A day after the massacre, the real estate mogul said such killings are always going to happen because mentally ill people will “slip through the cracks” regardless of the law.

“This isn’t a gun problem; this is a mental problem,” Trump told CNN. “It’s not a question of the laws; it’s really the people.”

On Sunday, Trump reiterated that argument.

“Guns, no guns — it doesn’t matter,” Trump said on NBC’s “Meet The Press” Sunday. “You have people that are mentally ill. And they’re gonna come through the cracks. And they’re going to do things that people will not even believe are possible.”

“No matter what you do, you will have problems,” Trump said on ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos.” “And that’s the way the world goes.”

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Trump added: “The gun laws have nothing to do with this. This isn’t guns; this is about really mental illness. And I feel very strongly about it. And again [the] politically correct [say], ‘Oh, we’re gonna solve the problem, there’ll be no problem, etc., etc.’ You’re always going to have difficulties, no matter how tight you run it. Even if you had great education having to do with mental illness. You educate the community — still, you’re going to have people that slip through the cracks. And these people are more than slipping through the cracks; these people want to slip through the cracks. So you’re going to have problems. It’s unfortunate.”

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie called for lawmakers to “get tougher on the mental health issues.”

“Let’s do some tough things on mental health,” Christie said on “This Week.” “Let’s make involuntary commitment of people who speak violently easier for doctors. I’ve heard doctors in my state say, ‘The laws are so difficult and murky.’ Let’s work on those kinds of things. I think that makes sense.”

Christie added: “Let’s remember something else: In many of the places around this country where they have the toughest gun laws, they have the highest violent crime rates. And we focus on a tragedy like this. It’s an awful tragedy. It’s terrible. But it is the exception to violence in America.”