The father of the Oregon shooter who ruthlessly murdered 9 people at a community college in Umpqua, Oregon, insists that his son isn’t to blame for shooting innocent victims, but rather, ‘guns’ are to blame. The man absolving his son of responsibility is Ian Mercer and he made the statements during a CNN interview. A report in the Daily Beast claims that Mr. Mercer abandoned his son at birth–a factor that the father did not mention during his anti-gun rant on television.

Quoting Gary Evans, the Daily Beast wrote:

Gary Evans, 62, who was married to Mercer’s aunt, told The Daily Beast in a phone interview that when Mercer came into the world, his birth father was not in the picture.

“They were separated when I first met them, and I don’t believe they ever were married,” Evans said.

CNN reported that the father blamed guns, then walked it back slightly, and then began to blame the existence of guns again. They wrote:

The father of the Roseburg, Oregon, shooter said he doesn’t know where his son got his weapons, and he declined to comment much on his son’s mental state, but he was quick to say what he thought was to blame in the deadly college attack: Guns.

During his interview, Ian Mercer appeared to walk back his statement that guns were to blame, but only briefly.

“We talk about gun laws. We talk about gun control. Every time something like this happens, they talk about it and nothing gets done. I’m not trying to say that that’s to blame for what happened, but if Chris had not been able to get hold of 13 guns, this wouldn’t have happened,” the father said.

Mercer said he has never held a gun. He doesn’t want to, he said. He laid out his personal philosophy on the issue: “I’m a great believer (in) you don’t buy guns, don’t buy guns, you don’t buy guns.”

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