CNN anchor Alisyn Camerota on Wednesday confronted a Texas Republican lawmaker over inaction on gun violence, directly asking him why the state’s legislature seemingly puts more vigor toward stripping women’s access to abortion than it does in protecting schoolchildren.
“What we want to know is what your solution is,” Camerota asked state Rep. James White while standing in front of Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 students were killed on Tuesday. “We’ve all seen how quickly and creatively Texas—your local legislature—can act when it wants to, say, protect the unborn embryo. Why not act with that alacrity to protect living, breathing 10-year-olds in this school behind me?”
White, a state lawmaker for 12 years who recently lost a primary bid for Texas agriculture commissioner, responded: “We have this thing called the Constitution.” He then pivoted to pointing a finger at the mental-health issues, despite Texas Gov. Greg Abbott admitting that the shooter, Salvator Ramos, was not suffering from any known mental health issues.
“What we really need to be looking at is—whether it’s in Buffalo, whether it’s in Uvalde—is these young men, for some reason, that have some very disturbed emotional state,” White said. “We need to look at our mental health system.”
White’s comments reflected a common talking point among Republicans on gun restrictions. In the hours following Tuesday’s massacre, conservatives have argued that stricter gun legislation would not have prevented the violence.
Still, White’s claim was immediately called out by anchor Victor Blackwell, who noted Abbott’s concession and pointed to White’s highly favorable 92-percent rating from the National Rifle Association. “They say that this was the act of a lone, deranged criminal,” Blackwell said. “There was no evidence that there was mental illness.”
White tried to seize on the anchor’s comments, arguing that the word “deranged” indicates Blackwell, too, believes mental illness is to blame. Going forward, White said, the legislature would look at “everything.”
“But at the end of the day, we’re going to look at the people who do these acts, we’re going to convict them, and we’re going to punish them,” White said.
“You can’t convict him, sir,” Camerota shot back. “You can’t convict him. He was killed. He was killed, along with 19 children in the school behind me.”
When our legislatures do not do the will of the people, as the Constitution, says those representatives in Congress people are suppose to do, the Constitution actually says that the person in the State legislatures or the Federal Congress are suppose to represent ALL THE PEOPLE IN THE DISTRICT THEY REPRESENT, not just those of the political party they belong to. When about 90% of the population, want more and better gun control and 70% want military type weapons out of the hands of civilians, yet the few who want those things get their way over the majority.
Your percentages are a bit off, as well as your description of the weapon. It was not a military type weapon. Please look up what the AR in AR-15 stands for. It is not an assault weapon and not used by military. Any handgun can do the exact same thing as the AR. The “look” of the weapon gives the perception that it is a military type weapon. The media and politicians with an agenda use the publics ignorance to further their fight to track and register guns. That is the goal here. Not to take guns, but to track them so that when they decide to take citizens right to bear arms away, they will know who has them. I don’t know what stations you watch, or who you talk to, but everyone I know supports background checks which we already have by the way. They support the monitoring of social media posts for threats and statements to do harm to themselves and others. Not to hinder free speech but to take action when a clearly disturbed individual indicates violence will occur. They do not support a ban on guns deemed assault weapons for the simple reason that banning guns isn’t the answer. After 9-11, did we ban planes and box cutters? No, because those things didn’t kill people. People kill people. We have a people problem and until we bring God back into schools, fix our familial system and get back to respect for all, these tragedies will not end.
Its all part of the “end of the age”. Its lawlessness pure and simple caused because “the love of many has grown cold.” Its all a result of kicking God out of schools and society in general.
Mr. Ramos has a known history of purposely cutting his face “for fun”, and he “liked how it looked”, yelling at his mother in front of police officers while accusing her of trying to kick him out, and posting the incident on Instagram. A friend of his said that he and Ramos would go around shooting people with BB guns for fun. Had our law enforcement officials been notified of these actions, he may not legally have been able to purchase his weapons. He started wearing black and his behavior changed radically while in school, according to other students who knew him, but apparently the teachers and school administrators either did not notice, or did not care.