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 At a conservative forum in South Carolina, Bush was asked a
rambling question by moderator Alan Wilson, the state's attorney
general. Wilson pressed him on whether there should be more prayer
vigils at schools and other institutions to prevent tragedies such
as when someone "with an Uzi or a handgun" shoots "a bunch of
people."
Wilson did not mention the Oregon shootings a day earlier in which
nine people were killed.
“We’re in a difficult time in our country and I don’t think more
government is necessarily the answer to this. I think we need to
reconnect ourselves with everybody else," Bush, a former Florida
governor, replied.
"It’s just very sad to see," Bush added. "I resist the notion that -
I did - I had this challenge as governor. Look, stuff happens,
there’s always a crisis and the impulse is always to do something,
and it’s not necessarily the right thing to do."
Democrats, who see Bush as a threat to their chances of holding the
White House should he become the Republican presidential nominee in
2016, pounced on the remark, a day after the mass shooting at an
Oregon community college.
"What a way for Republicans to end a horrible week. In the aftermath
of another national gun tragedy, Jeb Bush just told victims of gun
violence everywhere, 'stuff happens'," the Democratic National
Committee said in a statement.
President Barack Obama was asked about the "stuff happens" remark at
a White House news conference.
"I don't even think I have to react to that one. I think the
American people should hear that and make their own judgments based
on the fact that every couple of months we have a mass shooting and
... they can decide whether they consider that stuff happening,"
Obama said.
Bush, who like most Republicans favors Americans' gun rights under
the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, was pressed to
explain his comment by reporters after he spoke.
He said states, not the federal government, should tighten access to
weapons by people who are mentally ill.
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"I think that’s the proper place that states need to look at it. And
I think some states have done a much better job of creating a
database so that you can identify people that have significant
mental health challenges and they shouldn’t have access to guns," he
said.
When a reporter asked Bush about the "stuff happens" comment, Bush
said he was not referring to the Oregon shootings.
"There are all sorts of things that happen in life. Tragedies
unfold. Look, just read the papers, and you see a child dies in a
pool, is drowned, and parents want to pass a law to do something,"
he said.
"And you got to be careful that you want to solve the problem. If
there is a problem, a defect in the law, fine, then we did that all
the time. But sometime you’re imposing solutions to problems that
doesn’t fix the problem and takes away people’s liberty and rights
and that’s the point I was trying to make," Bush said.
Bush later tweeted that Democrats had taken him out of context.
"Liberal Dems & some in media distorted my words to advance their
agenda in wake of tragedy. It's wrong. Thx to those who set record
straight," he said.
He tweeted a link for people to send support to the Oregon victims
through the Greater Douglas United Way and Umpqua Bank Relief Fund.
(http://www.gduway.org/announcements/ucc-relief-fund)
(Reporting by Steve Holland and Alana Wise; Editing by Clive McKeef
and James Dalgleish)
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