Rep. Roger Williams, R-Texas, one of the congressmen who was shot by a supporter of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., during a practice for the annual Congressional Baseball Game in 2017, said Monday he does not blame Sanders for his injury, and he does not think President Donald Trump should be blamed for the weekend shootings at an El Paso Walmart.
"I don't think you can blame President (George W.) Bush or any president, going back to President (Lyndon B.) Johnson when we had the shooting at the University of Texas," Rep. Williams told Fox News' "Outnumbered Overtime." "We all need, just like we do in business, to dial the rhetoric down."
Williams, meanwhile, said he would be willing to look at any ideas, but he does not know if background checks legislation, while important, will pass in the Senate,
"In the past, I have not voted for universal background checks, but we need to take a look at those kinds of things," Williams said. "We don't want the wrong people having guns. We can't take guns away from the good people, and assume the bad people will not have them, either."
He also commented he thinks the increased numbers of mass shootings are "generational" as young people are "isolating themselves."
"They don't have parental guidance; they don't have a parental unit," Williams said. "They don't have people that are telling them they love them. When I was growing up, we played baseball, basketball, football in the front yard until our mother told us to come in. We were involved in Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, were involved in church. We need to get back to this."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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