Rep. Steve Scalise, the Republican House Minority whip, is a victim of gun violence himself after being gravely wounded in a shooting at a congressional baseball practice in 2017. The Louisiana lawmaker however accused Democrats of using the recent mass shooting in Texas as an excuse to infringe gun rights and implied that such shootings almost always had a cause that could not be blamed simply on guns.
"It immediately becomes about Democrats wanting to take away guns," Scalise said on "Fox News Sunday."
"Let's go search for the root of the problem. How can we do a better job of connecting the dots and stopping something before it happens. Like we did after September 11th, which has worked really well as it relates to stopping terrorist attacks," Scalise said. When asked why the US had far more gun killings than other developed nations where firearms are far less available, he blamed what he said were "crazy" calls by liberal Democrats to defund the police.
The difference between Murphy and Scalise on this issue underscores the reasons why hopes for progress this week in Washington are tempered by the experience of the deep chasm that exists in the US on gun reform. And it raises questions over whether Washington will ever be able to keep Americans safe.
