On CNN, former FBI official explains “we are awash in guns in this country, and that simple fact makes all kinds of issues that we struggle with worse”
Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe: “So, at some point, we need to address the issue that connects all these problems, and that is that it’s very, very easy for anyone to get heavily armed quickly in this country”
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From the March 28, 2023, edition of CNN’s Inside Politics with John King
ABBY PHILLIP (GUEST ANCHOR): I want to ask you one more thing. Just take a listen to, this is Congressman Byron Donalds, responding to just the raising of this issue of the type of weapon that the shooter had, an AR-15, listen.
(VIDEO BEGINS)
REP. BYRON DONALDS (R-FL): If you’re going to talk about the AR-15, you're talking politics now … Let’s not get into politics, alright? Let’s not get into emotion, because emotion feels good, but emotion doesn’t solve problems.
(VIDEO ENDS)
PHILLIP: Andrew, from a law enforcement perspective, in Uvalde [Texas], it almost seemed that the officers were afraid to go in because the gunman was so heavily armed. And here, they weren’t hesitant, but the weaponry that was used against them was so powerful. What is your response from a law enforcement perspective?
ANDREW MCCABE (CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST): Well, I mean, all due respect to the congressman, I mean, that response is ridiculous. It’s not politics. Talking about the weapon, the incredible military-grade lethality that shooters are bringing literally to our schools, repeatedly, every year. This is not about politics, it’s about life and death in America. And the fact that we send our kids to school now, reasonably thinking that they might get shot there someday, by a gunman toting an AR-15 or something else.
The fact is that we are awash in guns in this country, and that simple fact makes all kinds of issues that we struggle with worse — the fact that we have mass shootings, the fact that we have higher violent crime rates here than anywhere else, the fact that people kill themselves with firearms in the United States at an alarmingly high rate, higher than any place else, any other comparatively developed country. So, at some point, we need to address the issue that connects all these problems, and that is that it’s very, very easy for anyone to get heavily armed quickly in this country.