On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks reacted to calls for gun control in the wake of the Jacksonville shooting and attempts to blame the shooting on Florida’s gun laws by stating that because there are already so many guns in the U.S., he has “low hopes that some gun control legislation will reduce people’s ability to get guns.” And that the shooting was a case where someone should have raised a red flag about how dangerous the shooter was before he killed people.
Guest host John Yang asked, “There was also another shooting in Jacksonville over the — over last weekend, where someone who clearly left a lot of writings about his hatred for black Americans, for black people, killed three people. A lot of people in Florida pointing to the lax gun laws in Florida, especially the concealed carry. You can carry a concealed weapon without a permit. Is that a fair connection, David?”
Brooks responded, “Well, I do think, if you reduced — I mean, we have hundreds of millions of guns in this country. So, I have low hopes that some gun control legislation will reduce people’s ability to get guns. But I do think that was a case where the guy had previous suicidal tendencies, was reading this crap online. And, hopefully — in those cases, hopefully, somebody in the family or a friend, just can say to somebody, red flag here, because that kind of case, he fit every stereotype of somebody who’s going to do this awful thing.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett