She’s sticking to her guns.
The widow of America’s deadliest sniper, Chris Kyle, hasn’t changed her opinion of guns one bit — even after one was used to kill her husband.
“A gun didn’t kill my husband, a man killed my husband,” Taya Kyle, 38, told The Post.
Chris Kyle — credited with 160 confirmed kills during his 10-year career with Navy SEAL Team 3 — was shot in February at a Glen Rose, Texas, gun range after ex-Marine Eddie Ray Routh allegedly blasted him and another man at close range, killing both.
The mother of two has steadfastly defended the rights of gun owners. She recently rallied gun enthusiasts at an NRA convention in Houston to continue to defend the Second Amendment, said she owns a Smith & Wesson pistol and even aims to take up hunting soon.
“Unfortunately, it’s a hot issue and people like to make it into a bigger picture that’s not an accurate picture,” she explained. “The majority of ways guns are used every day are very positive.”
Her husband wrote the bestselling memoir “American Sniper” and was penning a new book, “American Gun: A History of the U.S. in Ten Firearms,” at the time of his death. It will be released June 4.
He was so lethal he had an $80,000 bounty placed on his head by insurgents in Iraq and was nicknamed “Al-Shaitan Ramad” — “The Devil of Ramadi.”
His past is never far from his wife’s mind.
“For somebody like me, who can feel vulnerable, it is nice to have an added element of protection because there are people who are motivated to do evil,” she said. “That’s not going to change. If you’re going to do evil, you are going to do it — and . . . I’d like to be able to protect myself.”
Her husband’s alleged killer, Routh, 25, was reportedly suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and Kyle was trying to help him through it.
But Taya doesn’t buy that Routh was suffering PTSD.
“People who have PTSD don’t talk about it. They don’t use it as an excuse. They carry guns and they do good work and love their families,” she said. “They struggle, but it doesn’t change their character.”
She said Routh’s upcoming trial would shed light on the alleged killer’s motives, but declined to discuss how. “Chris has a lot of experience with guys with PTSD — hunting, shooting and healing. For that reason alone, there was no reason not to take him to the range — there’s a lot more information Chris would have needed to not to make that decision.”
Taya said she’ll be promoting the book in her husband’s place. And the spotlight will soon grow even brighter. Steven Spielberg will be directing a movie based on “American Gun,” and Bradley Cooper will be playing Kyle — an actor he approved, Taya said.