Democratic presidential contender and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker dodged questions about what specific gun measure he supports would have prevented Friday’s massacre in Virginia Beach, Va..
Appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Booker tiptoed around questions from host Jake Tapper about what could have stopped that specific shooting given that legally purchased handguns were used and not a semiautomatic assault rifle. Instead, he pointed to a general reduction in gun violence that his proposals would promote.
“How would your plan have stopped this tragedy, if at all?” Tapper asked.
“You know that every single day in the United States of America, in the aggregate, we have mass shootings that go on in neighborhoods like mine,” Booker said. “We’re not helpless to stop this. This is a uniquely American problem … This idea that we are helpless to stop this, the evidence points differently.”
“I have a comprehensive plan that people say is bold, but I’ll tell you what, it’s not bold; it’s common-sense, evidence-based things that we can do to lower gun violence,” Booker added, pointing out statistics on gun violence.
“I’m sorry to interrupt — but you keep saying we are not helpless, so I’m saying, what would have prevented this tragedy?” Tapper asked. “What steps specifically would have stopped the massacre in Virginia Beach?”
Booker responded by mentioning mental health and one-handgun-a-month laws but didn’t address the Virginia Beach shooting specifically. And he attacked the “gun lobby.”
“In the aggregate, we can do things that dramatically lower the levels of violence in our community. We’ve allowed this debate to be framed by the corporate gun lobby that has so eroded common sense,” Booker said.
“I hear you not talking about this specific massacre, but talking about gun violence in general,” Tapper said before moving on to another question about gun control.
