Pat Roberts, the Senator from Kentucky just broke with the party line and spoke out in support of common sense gun control.
Senator Roberts has taken $15.8 million from the NRA over the course of his political career. But that didn’t seem to stop him from finally taking the right position.
Speaking at the Kansas capitol, Roberts said that no one under the age of 21 should have access to an AR-15.
“This is an opportunity, if you look at these youngsters who are so emotionally tied in to this grief of losing their friends — but it’s more than gun control,” he said.
Roberts was referring to the student survivors of the Parkland, FL school shooting who have been speaking out since the massacre last week.
Nikolas Cruz shot 17 of his classmates with an AR-15 rifle on Valentine’s Day. He could face the death penalty for the crime.
This is the latest in a string of mass shootings – a gun went off in an Los Angeles classroom just last week, a gunman opened fire on a music festival in Las Vegas, killing over 50 people and injuring nearly 500 last year, a terrorist opened fire on the Pulse nightclub in Orlando almost two years ago.
The public has tired of the ritual Republican call for thoughts and prayers in the wake of these outbreaks of violence and the Democrats’ typically impotent calls for stricter gun control. This time, the survivors of the shooting, high school students, are speaking out and calling explicitly for something tangible to be done about the ease of access to guns in America.
Even President Trump has expressed support for raising the minimum age requirement to access an automatic weapon to 21. He tweeted the position, in direct opposition to the NRA’s official stance.
California Sen. Diane Feinstein has introduced legislation to do just that. With Roberts making his views known, this may be the beginning of bipartisan support for the bill.
