Dem. Rep. Gluesenkamp Perez: Assault Weapons ‘a Constitutional Right’ — There Are Places Where the Sheriff Won’t ‘Be There for an Hour’

On Thursday’s “Pod Save America,” podcast, Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA) said she doesn’t want an assault weapons ban and that there is “a constitutional right” to own them, and also stated that “it is different living in places where the sheriff is not going to be there for an hour.”

Co-host Jon Favreau asked, “Do you support an assault weapons ban?”

Gluesenkamp Perez responded, “No, no. I don’t. Because there’s a constitutional right to it. And so, if we can build a national consensus that a constitutional — that’s a different question than should Congress — who, by and large, by the way is — there are a lot of members from rural districts. There are not that many members who actually live in the rural parts of their rural districts. And so, it really — it is different living in places where the sheriff is not going to be there for an hour.”

Later, Favreau asked, “So, if you can have these conversations person-to-person, get a community to agree, then get a state to agree on an assault weapons ban, you’re saying you sort of start from there, you sort of start at the local level and work your way up?”

Gluesenkamp Perez answered, “I think that’s right. I think that that is the work of rebuilding — we don’t want to have difficult conversations with each other, we want to have a hammer or a bludgeon. And you have to understand how differently different communities work.”

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