The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) released a statement on June 14, indicating their conviction that the shooting on Congressional baseball players was the result of “Democratic hate speech.”

Breitbart News reported that five persons were injured when 66-year-old James T. Hodgkinson opened fire on Republican House and Senate members who were practicing baseball. Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) and four others were injured in the attack. Hodgkinson was shot and killed by police.

SAF sent Breitbart News a statement on the attack:

Today’s shooting of Congressman Steve Scalise (R-LA), and others including an aide and two Capitol Police officers is the result of Democratic hate speech toward President Donald Trump and majority Republicans, the Second Amendment Foundation said today. “This hate speech that has been going on since Donald Trump was elected,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “It gets their voter base agitated and this is what happens as a result. Is this just a coincidence this happened on the president’s birthday?” The gunman has been identified as James Hodgkinson of Illinois. A Facebook page belonging to the fatally-wounded suspect suggests that he was a socialist Democrat, and was a follower of Sen. Bernie Sanders. Sanders confirmed that Hodgkinson was apparently a volunteer in his 2016 presidential campaign. “When liberal leftists support the assassination of President Trump on stage what do you expect to happen,” Gottlieb stated. “Hate speech and actions incite this kind of violence. It is time for Democrats like Reps. Maxine Waters and Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Chuck Schumer, Barrack Obama and Hillary Clinton and many of the talking heads at CNN and MSNBC to shut up.”

SAF also observed:

Congressman Scalise and others at the field this morning were lucky to have the protection of courageous Capitol police officers, the good guys with guns who took down a bad guy with a gun,” he continued. “But what if they hadn’t been present?” Congressman Mike Bishop of Michigan, who was at the baseball field, told a reporter, “The only reason why any of us walked out of this thing, by the grace of God, one of the folks here had a weapon to fire back and give us a moment to find cover.” “Maybe now the anti-gun rights Democrats will support everyone’s right to carry a firearm for self-defense,” Gottlieb said. “We are the first line of defense when it comes to personal protection from crazed individuals.”

Breitbart News spoke with SAF’s Alan Gottlieb about the calls for more gun control that have already been made in reaction to the shooting. He responded, “Democrats should ban their hate speech, not our guns for self-defense.”

AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of Bullets with AWR Hawkins, a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.