Wasserman Schultz: It’s ‘Not Too Soon,’ ‘Something Has To Be Done About Access to Guns in This Country’

Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Hardball,” while commenting on the school shooting in Parkland, FL, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) declared it was not “too soon” to say that something had to be done “about access to guns in this country.”

Partial transcript as follows:

MATTHEWS: What is your feeling as a political figure, a leader in fact about gun control on this point? Because if we were having a situation today where a kid, an 18 or 19-year-old in this case, Nikolas Cruz, the alleged assailant had thrown dynamite sticks into the windows of a school would say keep the sticks away from kids, against people that shouldn’t have them. When it comes to guns, it’s their sacred right to have a gun stopping us from doing anything about this. You know we’re going to go through this again in a couple months. It will be some other school we will act shocked, which we should. We’ll talk about prayer, which we should. In the end we’ll know why it happened. It’s possible in this country, in fact, plausible it will happen fairly regularly.

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: No, you’re damn right, Chris. And it’s absolutely not too soon to yet again say that something has to be done about access to guns in this country. But just as important, something has to be done about making sure that people who have mental health challenges get the help that they need. I mean, this was a young man from the conversations I’ve had with folks at home today who you know, there are always those kids at schools who other kids say you know, if someone’s going to come and shoot up the school, had has the kid that would do it. That’s what people said about this young man. I mean, there are lots of PSAs out there now that say if you see something, say something. You should reach out if you have a concern about someone, but we need to make sure we can get resources to young people and then make sure that they can get the help they need. We have to address the inability for us to once and for all get guns and keep them from the hands of people who shouldn’t have them.

Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN

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