Blumenthal: Republicans Are ‘Putting Guns Above Children’

Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” that Republican lawmakers who don’t work with Democrats to address mass shootings that take place in the United States were “putting guns above children.”

On Tuesday night, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said, “There’s no doubt we need to do more to keep children in schools safe. We know from past experience that the most effective tool for keeping kids safe is armed law enforcement on the campus…Inevitably when there’s a murder of this kind, you see politicians try to politicize it. You see Democrats and a lot of folks in the media whose immediate solution is to try to restrict the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens.”

Blumenthal said, “If this tragedy doesn’t crystallize your sense of conscience, then you’re putting guns above children. That’s what I would say to colleagues who are ducking their obligation to vote on real gun violence prevention. Law enforcement believes that arming teachers would actually increase the dangers of potential tragedies. And the fact that there were human resource officers in this school shows that we need to take action before the shooting starts, not after this kind of apparently somewhat deranged person suffering from perhaps mental health issues, took this gun and committed this atrocity.”

He added, “So separating that person from a gun before he approached the school is the opportunity — a moment of potential separation of that gun from that individual that we should provide in the law is available. Strengthen those laws, like red flag statutes or background checks that potentially stop the gun violence before it starts, not relying on more guns in schools.”

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