Brokaw: Gun Conversations Become ‘Emotional’ Between Gun Owners and People Saying There’s ‘Reasonable Middle Ground’

On Monday’s broadcast of NBC’s “Today,” Tom Brokaw argued that it’s impossible to have a conversation on what kind of firearms can be purchased because it becomes emotionally-charged between gun owners “who are protected by the NRA, and other people who are saying, ‘There ought to be a more reasonable middle ground.'”

Brokaw stated there should be a national conversation on the amount of mass shootings in the US. He added, “You listen to those weapons, they’re on full auto at that point. Where did he get that kind of a gun? You can now get an AR-15, which is a modification of a military weapon, an M1, but it’s supposed to be a single shot at a time, but it has a big capacity. I go to a gun store in Montana, and I’ve owned guns all my life, and it used to have mostly .30-30s and high-powered sporting rifles. Now, they’ve got racks of these adapted military weapons. Stan McChrystal, who led our forces in Afghanistan and Iraq said, we ought not to be selling these kinds of weapons to the American civilian population. They’re designed to do one thing, which is to kill people. And they can be adapted. So, we need to have that kind of a dialogue in this country. No other Western nation has the number of gun deaths that we have in America, and we need to talk about it.”

He further stated, “And it’s amazing what you can buy on the market, by the way, whether it’s at a gun show, or illegally, from other people. So, we can’t have that conversation. Because it immediately becomes so emotional between the gun owners of America, who are protected by the NRA, and other people who are saying, ‘There ought to be a more reasonable middle ground.’ I’m a gun owner. I’ve got a closet full of them in Montana. I don’t have one of those AR-15s. I don’t need them. Because I’m not going to be shooting that kind of thing. But almost all my friends out there now have that kind of a weapon.”

Brokaw concluded by saying, “I don’t know what we do…in keeping our citizens safe unless we begin to lock down those kinds of gatherings. Because they have become targets for opportunity for these kinds of maniacs, as we’ve seen in too many other places.”

(h/t Townhall)

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett