House Speaker Kevin McCarthy dodged when CNN asked if he would support new measures to prevent gun violence on Wednesday, saying he wanted to see “all the facts.”
Mr McCarthy’s words come after the shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee on Monday that killed three adults and three nine-year-old children.
“We want to see all the facts, we need to get the facts,” Mr McCarthy said.
But House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, who was shot by a supporter of Senator Bernie Sanders and seriously injured in 2017, pushed back against the idea that Congress should restrict gun ownership after the shooting.
“I really get angry when I see people try to politicize it for their own personal agenda, especially when we don’t even know the facts,” he said.
House Republicans largely oppose measures they believe would restrict gun ownership. Shortly after the shooting in Nashville, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia sought to blame the fact that the shooter was transgender.
“It's not about their identity,” she said. “What kind of hormones are they on? What kind of medications are they taking for mental illness? What is causing this aggression in this biological female who identifies as a male for them to go in and murder children?”
Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, one of the most outspoken voices for gun safety, told The Independent on Monday that passing new legislation might be more difficult with Republican control of the House of Representatives.
“I think America wants to see where people stand on some of these issues, whether it be, whether it be universal background checks or assault weapons, so we’ll continue to talk about what path forward we have on compromise legislation,” he said on Monday.
Democratic Representative Jamaal Bowman of New York for his part confronted House Republicans as they left votes on Wednesday.
