Marco Rubio Has Accepted Millions From the NRA But Refers to Florida School Shooting as 'Inexplicable'
Florida Senator Marco Rubio, a man with a long history of showing concern for the victims of horrifying mass casualties in his state without ever attempting to seriously legislate against its notoriously lax gun laws, referred to Wednesday’s deadly shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School as “inexplicable” during an interview with NBC-6’s Jackie Nespral.
“I don’t know what words anyone can say,” Rubio told Nespral after she asked him what words he had for the victims and families. “I can’t imagine—I have children around that age, two kids in high school right now. You’re watching on the news, you read that there’s been a shooting at the school your kids attend […] This is inexplicable.”
Inexplicable literally means “unable to be explained.” I’m very interested in hearing what exactly it is about the events that unfolded Wednesday that Rubio can’t explain. Why is it inexplicable that a 19-year-old acquired a gun in a state where gun registries are prohibited? Where there aren’t waiting periods to purchase assault weapons? Where you don’t need a license to purchase or own a firearm? Where local authorities have no real power to regulate firearms? Where concealed carry is no problem? Where there are no restrictions on assault weapons, 50 caliber rifles, or large capacity ammunition magazines? Where there are no laws to prohibit gun ownership for those charged on domestic violence-related offenses? Where the National Rifle Association brags about how gun friendly the state’s laws are?
What about any of those factors makes a gun-related mass casualty inexplicable?
Moreover, why, even barring all of those factors, does it continue to “stun” you when you’ve accepted $3.3 million from the NRA?
“Obviously there’s a debate in this country over gun laws,” Rubio told Nespral Wednesday evening. “If there’s a gun law that could prevent this, let’s do it. [But] I don’t want to get into that debate right now. The gun laws that have been proposed wouldn’t have prevented this.”
He continued: “Laws can be made better, it’s a legitimate public policy debate. At the end of the day it’s not just what people are using to carry out these attacks, but why they’re doing it. In the richest country in the world, [what] leads someone to do that?”
There are very few things about Wednesday’s horrifying attack that are inexplicable. The least inexplicable of all those things is that Rubio has no interest in “getting into that debate right now.”