Sunday Rundown: Guns & Ammo Edition (Again)

Four years ago, we covered the Santa Fe mass shooting on the Sunday shows. So little has changed that we can’t even get through a mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, before another tragic one in Uvalde, Texas, has taken the media cycle and people’s attention. Let’s look at the Sunday shows and see how they handled this.

Mo Brooks on “Fox News Sunday”

Let’s begin with insurrection enthusiast, Alabama Congressman and Senate candidate, Mo Brooks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ-rSTh38B8

Host Sandra Smith asked about any potential proposal on guns, only for Brooks to filibuster with old talking points about the Second Amendment and “freedom.” When Smith brought up the possibility of raising the minimum age for purchasing AR-15s to 21, much like
alcohol was long ago and cigarettes recently, Brooks told this anecdote.

BROOKS: Well, I suggest that the polling data that you have does not reflect of the opinions of the American people. […] And I’ll use my own history as an example. There are many times when I went to school with a shotgun in my car. Why? Because I just got through duck hunting. There were other teenagers my age at that point in time that also brought their weapons to school, and they had been hunters, too, for whatever it is the hunting season was about.

Now, back when I was growing up, we didn’t have these mass killings, okay? They weren’t there. They didn’t occur. Or if they did, I certainly was not cognizant of them and they were very, very, very rare, so rare that I cannot recall a single instance in which one of those things occurred during my youth.

Brooks was asked about AR-15s, and not just guns in general, so his story from high school is irrelevant. But part of the reason that mass shootings like we have now didn’t occur then might be that
AR-15s were not available for the civilian market until 1989, while Brooks graduated high school in 1972 and didn’t even enter politics until 1982. Brooks also seems oblivious that his state is tied with Louisiana and Georgia at number 11 for most school shootings since 1970s.

Of course, being oblivious and wrong about “numbers” seems to be an ongoing thing considering
the meltdown when Smith brought up the 2020 election.

He won’t be helpful if he gets elected to the Senate.

Asa Hutchinson on “Face The Nation”

While the Arkansas governor seemed to signal that he wanted to make progress, it became clear how disingenuous it was while giving his thoughts to host Margaret Brennan.

HUTCHINSON: Well, it certainly shows that you have to have multiple layers of security to protect the children. […] And that’s the reason that you’ve got to have different layers, you can’t rely upon just one technique. […] And it is about the single point of entry that by blocking it open allowed the gunman to come in, it is about the mental health issues where we’ve got to do better to identify those that are potentially a mass killer. You’ve got to have our private sector, internet providers to do better in using technology to identify these kinds of dangerous violent communications much quicker.

Let’s break these down:

Dan Crenshaw on CNN’s “State Of The Union”

MAGA Nick Fury and current congressman from Texas Dan Crenshaw was asked by Dana Bash about trying to have sensible gun regulations to prevent tragedies like the one in his own state, after she pointed out Senator John Cornyn of Texas was taking the lead (as urged by Senate Majority Minority Leader Mitch McConnell) and even proposing a possible “red flag law.”

youtu.be

Crenshaw thinks we should do nothing, instead.

BASH: Would you vote yes on a national red flag law?

CRENSHAW: No, I wouldn’t. […] I think there’s a lot of problems with red flag laws, especially at a national level. […]

BASH: OK, so would you support one — would you support a red flag law in Texas?

CRENSHAW: Well, no, and here’s why, because what we are essentially trying to do with a red flag law is enforce the law before the law has been broken. And that’s a really difficult thing to do. It’s difficult to assess whether somebody is a threat.

“Red flag laws” allow courts to temporarily seize firearms based on people who pose a credible threat to themselves or others. It’s not a magic 8-ball, Crenshaw, or a lottery. Much like any other protective order, courts have made these determinations before. But Crenshaw wasn’t done giving bad takes on gun control.

CRENSHAW: In the military, we have automatic weapons. I would say we never use them on full auto because they’re extremely inaccurate that way, so they’re not really useful in that sense.

Arguing AR-15s are not “weapons of war” because the military version has a full-auto mode, only to then explain how no one uses that mode and destroying your argument on the difference between the M-16 (military) and AR-15 (civilian) is just an amazing self-own.

Based on these Republicans and Cornyn’s history with similar negotiations with Democrats, we are not very optimistic.

We’d love to be wrong, but for now, we’ll have to wait and see.

Have a week.