A compromise gun control bill being discussed in Congress includes an expansion of background checks on weapons purchasers at gun shows and on the Internet, but exempts sales between close family members.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry tells Newsmax he wants to “take a look at” the bill before he decides to support or oppose it.
“Obviously this universal background check they were talking about was not going to allow me to be able to get my children weapons that have been in our family for decades and in some cases multiple generations,” he says in an exclusive interview with Newsmax TV.
“So we’ll look at the legislation.”
But the “knee-jerk response to the heinous events that have occurred over the course of the last couple of years” and “liberals who say that’s going to make it all better, that’s just nonsense,” he says. “We need to be having a conversation about mental health in this country. We need to be talking about how do you identify those individuals that truly are problematic, and generally speaking, these have been individuals who have some very substantial mental disabilities.
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“I don’t hear much of a conversation about that. I hear people talking about we’re going to take your guns away from you and we need to rewrite the Second Amendment. I mean those are very, very problematic conversations that we hear being discussed, so again, I’ll take a look at the legislation and make a decision about whether that’s appropriate or not.
“But I will suggest to you this: A piece of legislation that is [only] going to somehow or other look at who’s buying guns is not going to have any impact on the kinds of tragedies that have occurred.”
See the full excerpt below:
Editor's Note: See the full newsmax interview and other excerpts with Rick Perry:
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