The Biden administration is being "tone-deaf" on the issues leading to mass shootings in the nation's schools — like the one that claimed 21 lives in Uvalde, Texas — because it's a "big mistake" to go after gun ownership without taking steps to harden schools as targets for would-be killers, said Rep. Buddy Carter, R-Ga., on Newsmax Saturday.
"We need to make sure the students are safe," the congressman said on Newsmax's "Saturday Report." "What needs to happen is that we need to harden the schools. The more I hear about Uvalde, the more it sounds like there were policing errors there. There were major errors."
Carter's comments come after President Joe Biden this week pleaded with Congress to take action against gun violence and called on lawmakers to restore the ban on the sales of assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines.
But the ban, Carter said, is not the way to solve gun violence in the United States.
"We need to have a school resource officer at every school — no exception. And we need to make sure the students are safe," the congressman said. "All of us agree with that: Republicans, Democrats, independents. Nobody disagrees with that."
But going after guns alone, without hardening schools or "making sure that we are treating mental illness — that's going to be a big mistake. That's why this administration is so tone-deaf. They just don't get it."
Meanwhile, the House Judiciary Committee has marked up three new gun laws that will be on the floor this coming week, according to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The bills seek to raise the legal age to buy semi-automatic firearms, like what was used in Uvalde, from 18 to 21. It would also ban civilians from using bump stocks and high-capacity ammunition magazines, impose mandatory background checks for so-called "ghost gun" sales, strengthen firearm storage laws, and keep proxy buyers from purchasing guns for people who fail to pass a background check.
The House is further expected to vote on whether to codify nationwide red-flag laws that would "keep guns out of the hands of those who pose a threat to themselves or others by implementing a nationwide extreme risk law and encouraging states to enact their own extreme risk laws," Pelosi wrote in a letter.
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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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