Former US vice president Mike Pence has declined to condemn a spate of recent gun attacks on innocent bystanders, suggesting they were a consequence of rising crime rates.
In an interview with CBS's Face the Nation programme on Sunday, Mr Pence said the shooting of unarmed civilians by legal firearm owners should not require Americans to forfeit their gun rights.
The interviewer appeared to be referencing three recent incidents in which people who approached the wrong house or car were fired upon by the occupant, despite posing no threat.
Kaylin Gillis, 20, was shot dead in rural New York after pulling into the wrong driveway, while Ralph Yarl, a Black teenager in Missouri, survived being shot by a white homeowner because he rang the wrong doorbell. Two cheerleaders in Texas were also shot when one of them mistakenly tried to enter the wrong car in a parking lot.
Asked what could be done to stem the fear and violence, Mr Pence said: "Well, our- our hearts go out to the families of lost loved ones in the incidents in- in Kansas City, and in upstate New York. I just can't imagine the pain that they're enduring in that tragedy.”
"But," he continued, "tragedy should not require us to forfeit our liberty. And the right of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms is enshrined in the Constitution of the United States.
"I don't know the facts of those cases, I'm confident that local law enforcement will move forward and apply the law in a proper way. But I can't help but suspect that this recent spate of tragedies is evidence of the fear that so many Americans are feeling about the crime wave besetting this country."
When the interviewer suggested there was "no excuse" for shooting at somebody who comes to your door, Mr Pence declined to agree or disagree, saying only that he “[couldn't imagine] the circumstances" that would lead someone to do that and was sure local law enforcers would "hold people to a proper accounting".
Republicans have made claims of a Democratic "crime wave" central to their campaigning since 2021, reportedly spending around $157m on crime-related adverts in advance of last year's midterm elections.
The average US murder rate rose significantly between 2019 an 2021 before apparently falling in 2022, according to the FBI, with some cities seeing sharp spikes in homicides.
The rate of violent crime seems to have dropped slightly, but the FBI's data for 2021 is patchy and does not include major cities such as New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.
Democrats contend that loose Republican gun regulations are feeding the problem, pointing to broadly higher murder rates in red states such as Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Missouri, and Arkansas.
Crystal Quade, leader of the Democratic minority in the Missouri House of Representatives, blamed the shooting of Ralph Yarl on “extreme gun laws” that have created “a culture of fear... that turns neighbours against each other”.
