Republican senator blames the culture of "sanctuary cities" for mass shootings

Updated by Tara Golshan Oct 3, 2017, 4:25pm EDT

Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) on Tuesday reiterated a normal Republican talking point that gun laws don’t affect gun violence, with a twist: It’s the existence of "sanctuary cities" that creates a lawless culture fostering mass shootings like the one in Las Vegas, he said.

Two days after a lone white American gunman killed more than 58 people in Las Vegas, what is now considered one of the deadliest mass shootings in modern US history, Inhofe said the country is “inundated with permissive laws” — like those in “sanctuary cities” where local law enforcement doesn’t enforce all federal immigration laws — perpetuating the “cultural problem” behind mass shooting.

“That has a lot more to do with [mass shootings] than gun owners laws,” Inhofe told me. “You can go ahead and break a law and you can come to a sanctuary city, and they wouldn’t enforce the laws.”

In wake of the Las Vegas massacre, there has been a renewed conversation about gun control reforms. Since the shooting in Sandy Hook in 2012, in which 20 children were killed, there have been more than 1,500 mass shootings in the United States. When asked about it on Tuesday, President Donald Trump said “we'll be talking about gun laws as time goes by.” But Republicans in Congress, like Inhofe, haven’t warmed to the idea of gun control. “[An issue like sanctuary cities] is something that certainly has a profound impact on people’s behavior,” he said.

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https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/3/16412100/republican-sanctuary-cities-las-vegas-shooting-inhofe