GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry described the mass killings in a Charleston, S.C. church as an “accident.”
The former Texas governor’s shocking description of the shootings that killed nine people was made in a television interview with Newsmax, a conservative outlet.
Perry spokesman Travis Considine moved to quell the furor the remark sparked on social media by saying the candidate meant to say “incident.”
Perry was asked to respond to the shootings and President Obama’s invoking gun control as a solution.
“This is the M.O. of this administration anytime there is an accident like this,” said Perry. “You know, the president’s clear. He doesn’t like for Americans to have guns, and so he uses every opportunity, this beinganother one, to basically go parrot that message.”
In the 2012 presidential campaign Perry famously stumbled in a debate, unable to remember the third of three federal agecies he wanted to eliminate. He said “oops,” a quote that haunted the rest of his candidacy.
Perry is a strong 2nd Amemdment supporter and gun owner. He said in the interview that he did not know if the shootings of the black church goers by white alleged killer Dylann Roof, 21, was an act of terrorism. But he said it was a “crime of hate.”