U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh said Wednesday if he had known he had been approached by the father of a Parkland high school shooting victim during his Senate confirmation hearing last week, he would have offered his condolences and listened to what he had to say.
“As I was leaving the hearing room for a recess last Tuesday, a man behind me yelled my name, approached me from behind, and touched my arm,” Kavanaugh wrote in his response to a litany of questions following his oral testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
“It had been a chaotic morning with a large number of protestors in the hearing room,” Kavanaugh continued. “As the break began, the room remained noisy and crowded. When I turned and did not recognize the man, I assumed he was a protestor. In a split second, my security detail intervened and ushered me out of the hearing room.”
Kavanaugh added he didn’t realize the man was Fred Guttenberg, who lost his daughter Jaime during the February shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. Sixteen others were killed by the lone gunman.
“Mr. Guttenberg has suffered an incalculable loss,” Kavanaugh wrote. “If I had known who he was, I would have shaken his hand, talked to him, and expressed my sympathy. And I would have listened to him.”
[Opinion: Don’t blame Brett Kavanaugh for not shaking Parkland dad Fred Guttenberg’s hand]
Images and videos of Guttenberg extending his hand to Kavanaugh for a hand shake last week were widely shared on social media.
“Just walked up to Judge Kavanaugh as morning session ended,” Guttenberg tweeted at the time. “Put out my hand to introduce myself as Jaime Guttenberg’s dad. He pulled his hand back, turned his back to me and walked away. I guess he did not want to deal with the reality of gun violence.”
The White House quickly jumped to Kavanaugh’s defense, citing his security detail.
Kavanaugh’s judicial record on the Second Amendment has been a cause of concern for pro-gun control advocates.
Kavanaugh defended the right to bear arms in a dissent to a 2011 challenge to a D.C. law that barred possession of most semi-automatic rifles and required registration of all firearms.
In his dissent, Kavanaugh wrote that he believed the ban and registration requirement were unconstitutional and, relying on the 2008 Supreme Court case Heller v. District of Columbia, wrote that “handguns — the vast majority of which today are semi-automatic — are constitutionally protected.”
The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote on Kavanaugh’s candidacy on Thursday ahead of his nomination being considered on the Senate floor.
