Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) responded to Monday’s shooting at the Washington Navy Yard by calling for more people to be armed, and insisted that blaming guns was like saying that obesity was caused by “too many spoons.”

In an interview on Tuesday, Newsmax’s John Bachman asked the Texas Republican if Congress should be talking about overhauling the mental health system in response to the Navy Yard tragedy.

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“I absolutely do,” Gohmert agreed. “It obviously has an effect, and it’s interesting that these people seem to have a common tie with extremely violent video games.”

“But it is important to note that it is our own system that’s breaking down,” he added. “How in the world do you give a legitimate ID to a guy who got ousted out of the Navy for gunfire incidents? I mean, good night. How do you give this guy access to anything?”

The congressman said that he would be “all for everybody keeping their sidearms if they’re in the military and on a military installation. That’s something we need to get back to.”

“I see a lot of problems here and blaming this on guns is like saying the big problem with obesity is we’ve got too many spoons,” he opined. “It’s not the spoons, it’s not the guns. It’s the people who have them.”

“There’s a lot of things that need to be done, but one of them is to deal with the mental health of people who have guns.”

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Watch the video below from Newsmax, broadcast Sept. 17, 2013.