Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida said Friday that new gun laws wouldn’t have stop shootings like the one that took place in San Bernardino earlier this week, pointing out that places like California already have strict laws on the books.
“First of all, criminals will always have access to weapons — that’s why it’s important that law-abiding citizens have access to the ability to protect themselves,” Mr. Rubio, a 2016 GOP presidential candidate, said on “Fox and Friends.”
“California, for example, has very strict gun laws. France has very strict gun laws,” he said. “Even all the proposals that the Left are putting out — if they were all in place, none of them would have disrupted not just the attack in San Bernardino, but none of these other major attacks we’ve seen over the last few years in this country, whether they’re terrorist-related or not.”
“These laws have never been proven to do anything to reduce gun violence,” he said.
Many Democrats have launched a renewed push for gun controls in the wake of the San Bernardino shooting and last week’s shooting at a Planned Parenthood facility in Colorado.
During a marathon voting session in the U.S. Senate Thursday, measures to expand gun-purchase background checks and prevent suspected terrorists from buying guns failed to pass. The measures were offered as amendments to an Obamacare repeal bill.
“Within seconds, within minutes of this attack, you had multiple left-wing Democrats, whether they were senators or Hillary Clinton, out there talking about gun control as if somehow it would have done anything to prevent this attack, and there’s no consequences for them having been wrong on it,” Mr. Rubio said. “This is a terror attack, and these individuals were plotting to kill as many people as possible — not just with guns, but with pipe bombs — and we need to understand this crisis for what it is. We are at war with radical jihadists.”
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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