condaleezza Rice
© ABC
Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gave the ladies of ABC's The View a history lesson on Thursday as they discussed the Second Amendment.

Whoopi Goldberg and her co-hosts were once again looking for legislative answers to the Feb. 14 massacre in Parkland, Florida, but Ms. Rice told them to look for clues in Birmingham, Alabama. She said that Democrat lawmaker "Bull" Connor and the Ku Klux Klan's disdain for black citizens who could defend themselves convinced her at a young age of the importance of gun rights.

"Let me tell you why I'm a defender of the Second Amendment," former President George W. Bush's top diplomat told the panel. "I was a little girl growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, in the late '50s, early '60s. There was no way that Bull Connor and the Birmingham police were going to protect you."

Ms. Rice said that her father and his friends would fire their guns in the air when "night riders" with the KKK would come through the neighborhood.

"I'm sure if Bull Connor had known where those guns were, he would have rounded them up," she said. "So I don't favor some things like gun registration."

Ms. Rice also noted that many warning signs were missed regarding Nikolas Cruz, 19, who was arrested after the Parkland massacre and charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder.

"If you get that many tips about somebody that they're going to cause harm, go and figure out what was going on," she said.

Police were called to Mr. Cruz's home dozens of times prior to the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, and a January tip to the FBI about his "desire to kill" was never processed for investigation.