Democrats and President Joe Biden politicizing the deadly Buffalo mass shooting for topics of gun control and racism is not only "dangerous" but disrespectful of the victims, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., told Newsmax.
"In the wake of the tragedy, I think the emphasis should be on the tragic loss of life and on those lives," Paul said Tuesday on "John Bachman Now," saying "typically" Democrats politicize shootings for their partisan agenda, including racial division and gun control.
"I think that's inappropriate in the wake of such a horrible tragedy. I think our sympathy and our hearts, our minds, our prayers, all of that should be going toward those who lost their lives in this, the heroes who tried to stop it.
"But politicizing it, I think is a big mistake."
Ultimately, it should be about stopping violence, Paul told host John Bachman, finding solutions instead of exacerbating political and racial divisions.
"When the shootings happen, we should look for solutions," Paul said. "And one of the things I keep coming back to is that there are a lot of warning signals, but perhaps also crimes that are committed by these people in advance for which they can be prosecuted."
Paul noted Democrats have been pushing soft-on-crime policies that allow criminals to stay out of jail to commit crime, and that includes mass shooters like the most recent one at the Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo and the one years ago in the Parkland, Florida, high school shooting.
"You know the shooter down in Parkland, I think some people estimated, may have committed 17 different crimes," Paul said. "He was never arrested, never prosecuted.
"Now this young man, I think there's some accusations that he was making some threats and the threats were investigated. Perhaps what we need to do — I'm all for everybody getting their day in court — but if you're making threats, I think we need to be maybe more aggressive with trying to prosecute these people in hopes that we might save lives."
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Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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