House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., who survived an attempted assassination by a political radical, pushed back against calls for major gun control regulations in the wake of the Las Vegas shooting, saying that further restrictions wouldn’t make the country safer but would hurt the rights of law-abiding citizens.
“You go to a city like Chicago. Some of the toughest guns laws in the country are in Chicago, yet they have the worst gun violence,” Scalise said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “The Second Amendment really predates the Bill of Rights. Our Founding Fathers believed strongly in gun rights for citizens. Frankly, they thought it was an assumed right.”
Asked if he thought the right was “unlimited,” Scalise said, “It is.” He nevertheless averred that there were laws on the books and said that the government should focus on enforcing those laws rather than adding new ones.
Scalise said he was wary of prohibiting the so-called “bump stock” that Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock reportedly used. The device allowed semi-automatic weapons to fire at a faster rate than they would ordinarily. “Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi [D-Calif.] already said she wants it to be a slippery slope. She doesn’t want to stop at bump stocks. They want to go out and limit the rights of gun owners.”
The Louisiana congressman was nearly killed in June when he was shot along with several others while playing baseball in northern Virginia. The shooter was a liberal activist and former volunteer for Sen. Bernie Sanders’, I-Vt., presidential campaign. He recovered from his wounds and returned to House last week.
