House Whip Steve Scalise made it back to work last week on Capitol Hill after being shot and gravely injured during a congressional baseball practice in June. He was greeted with a standing ovation and roaring applause on the House floor. During an interview earlier this week Fox News, anchor Martha McCallum asked Scalise if his opinion or support for the Second Amendment has changed after the massacre in Las Vegas and becoming a gun shot victim who nearly died from injuries.
“Have you, your experience of your own, has it changed how you feel about any of that [gun control/Second Amendment]?” McCallum asked.
“I think it’s fortified it because first of all, you’ve got to recognize that when there is a tragedy like this, the first thing we should be thinking about is praying for the people who were injured and doing whatever we can to help them, to help law enforcement. We shouldn’t be first thinking of promoting our political agenda. I think we see too much of that where people say ‘we need more gun control,'” Scalise said. “First of all, look at some of those bills. Those bills wouldn’t have done anything to stop this. The gunman actually cleared background checks, so to promote some kind of gun control I think is the wrong way to approach this.”
“Frankly what I experienced was when there was a shooter, luckily we had Capitol Police there with their own guns. Every single day in America regular citizens that just have a passionate belief in the Second Amendment, who have their own guns, use guns every single day to protect themselves against criminals…that’s a different side of the story that I think is important. People use guns way more to defend themselves against criminals than criminals use guns to hurt people,” he continued. Scalise also detailed efforts by the House to address mental health issues in America.
