During his Thursday night “Keep America Great” rally in New Hampshire, President Donald Trump commented on violent crime, saying, “It’s not the gun that pulls the trigger.”

Trump said, “We’ve been working very hard to make sure we keep guns out of the hands of insane people and those who are mentally sick and shouldn’t have guns.”

He noted that, years ago, many “cities and states closed mental institutions for budgetary reasons.” The people who would otherwise have been treated were thereafter left on the streets. He noted that this was especially true in places like New York where “they let really seriously mentally ill people out on the streets.”

Trump noted that “seriously ill people” need to be taken off the streets.

He differentiated between the mentally ill and law-abiding gun owners, saying, “We can’t make it harder for good, solid, law-abiding citizens to protect themselves. We will always uphold the right to self-defense, and we will always uphold the Second Amendment. We will.”

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.