CNN anchor Dana Bash on Sunday morning repeatedly pressed an evasive Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) on his gun-control positions following the Uvalde school shooting, leading the host to directly ask: What solutions would you actually support?
“What would you agree with?” Bash grilled the congressman after he continually rejected different gun-control proposals, including universal background checks and so-called “red flag” laws (for which he’d previously suggested support). “The way that the answers are coming out now, it’s that nothing’s going to change,” Bash added, “and I don’t think people here in this community and across the country want to hear that after their babies are being massacred by these guns.”
The question came after eight minutes of determining Crenshaw’s positions on various proposals for new gun laws, of which all were received by the congressman with a resounding “no.”
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The lawmaker repeatedly claimed he has never and would never support “red flag” laws—which would allow officials or families to request a court temporarily strip an individual of their firearms if they are deemed to pose a danger to others or themselves—touting it as a “myth” floated by “trolls on the internet” and fellow Republicans.
However, in an August 2019 tweet posted a deadly mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, Crenshaw indicated potential support for such measures. “The solutions aren’t obvious, even if we pretend they are. But we must try,” Crenshaw wrote at the time. “Let’s start with the TAPS Act. Maybe also implement state ‘red flag’ laws, or gun violence restraining orders. Stop them before they can hurt someone.”
On Sunday, Crenshaw also told Bash that he would not support any measures related to universal background checks, gun-show background checks, or raising the gun purchase age to 21. Instead, the Republican proposed strengthening security at schools—a stance his party has taken in the days since a gunman killed 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School.
“Why can’t you secure schools and other solutions that have to do with access to guns in a way that respects the Second Amendment?” Bash pressed the lawmaker. In response, Crenshaw blasted gun-control measures, claiming there is a “not very strong” correlation between gun ownership and gun violence.
“It sounds like you’re saying that guns in this country are not a problem,” Bash responded. “I mean, there are 300-something million people, 400 million guns. You don’t see that as a problem?”
“No, culturally, we’re a country that has long passed a Second Amendment that believes in the right to self-defense,” Crenshaw said. “I mean, I don’t think it’s a problem that I own guns.”
