Brian Mast: There needs to be a balance between the Second Amendment and public safety

Rep. Brian Mast said Tuesday that there needs to be a balance between home defense and what type of guns that are legal to sell.

“I don’t want anybody to have the way they defend themselves in the way that they see fit denied, either,” Mr. Mast, Florida Republican, said on CNN.

“But we recognize that there’s a balance between what is the level of lethality and what is the level of firepower and where does that fall in line,” he added.

Mr. Mast wrote an op-ed in The New York Times last week explaining why an AR-15 should be banned. He is also a U.S. Army veteran who lost both his legs in combat.

“We recognize that there is a line somewhere that we say, here is the Second Amendment, and here is public safety,” he said.

A ban on “assault weapons” has been a hot topic of conversation since the shooting at a Florida high school nearly two weeks ago. There is no set definition of an assault-style gun, however, making it difficult to distinguish from other types of firearms.

But Mr. Mast said there needs to be a conversation about weapons like the AR-15 and why they do need to be banned. He said that he’s already discussed his position with his fellow Republicans and plans to continue that conversation.

“Let’s pause, let’s assess, let’s see what’s going on in the system,” he said.