On Thursday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “All In,” DNC Deputy Chair Representative Keith Ellison (D-MN) argued that human lives should be first and the right of people to “to possess these weapons of war” should be “way behind.”
Ellison said, “I think, you know, talk about the least you can do. I mean, bump stocks, of course, we should ban them. They should never have been allowed. But what about all of the other lives we could save if we took more action? I mean, look, there should be universal background checks. You should not be able to have a high-capacity magazine. We ought to be able to step and up ban all these weapons of war that people use on our streets, so we can protect human life. But I mean, now that we’ve seen 59 people killed, murdered, over 500 people injured, you wonder what it’s really going to take to actually take real action. I’d say that when they killed 20 kids at Sandy Hook or killed 59 people partying in Miami, I mean, now we see this tragedy. The bottom line is, there is — the bump stock is just a minimal starting point. I really do believe that we need to put the lives of people first, and put somebody’s right to possess these weapons of war way behind.”
He later added, “[T]his has absolutely nothing to do with hunting rifles, shotguns, people going hunting, being a sportsman. That’s irrelevant.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett