'The View' Resurrects Gun Control and Mental Health Debate After Texas Church Massacre

Whoopi Goldberg started the show by airing the president's comments from Japan, where he said "this isn't a guns situation ... this is a mental health problem at the highest level." Those words didn't sit too well with the moderator.

"People were shot in a place of worship, it's also a mental issue, OK, but it is also a gun issue," she said. "26 people are dead, that's the real point. It doesn't matter whether somebody else had a gun and they could have done something. Let's talk about the people who lost their lives in church."

"Maybe he is a mental health problem at the highest level," Joy Behar cracked of POTUS.

Proud NRA member Meghan McCain said the conversation should be about the checks and balances that are "falling to the wayside" right now in regards to mental health. "There are a lot of loopholes, I'm an NRA member, I'm a total Second Amendment Right supporter, but even a person that's an NRA member doesn't want someone with mental health problems to get a hold of any weapons," she added.

The conversation continued later in the show when Republican Senator Jeff Flake stopped by to chat with the panel. He agreed laws "need to be better" when it comes to guns and mental health, but faced some flack from Behar when he defended the right to have a semi-automatic weapon.

"With the most recent shooting in Las Vegas, with the bump stocks, there's no reason to have a device that makes a semi-automatic weapon act like an automatic weapon," he said.

When Behar pressed further, asking, "Why do you even need a semi-automatic weapon?" he replied saying "Hunters use them." "I would not want a ban on semi-automatic weapons," he added, as Joy shook her head in disagreement. "You shouldn't be able to buy a fully automatic weapon."

"It doesn't make sense to me. The semi-automatic can shoot 20 shots and automatic can shoot 50 shots, what's the difference?" asked Behar. "You're still going to kill 20 people."