GOP Rep. Pushing For Assault Rifle Ban: GOP Colleagues Are Privately Interested

Source: Talking Points Memo




By Nicole Lafond | February 27, 2018 10:24 am

A Republican lawmaker from Florida, who has an “A-plus” rating from the National Rifle Association, has publicly called for a ban on assault rifles this week and told CNN Tuesday that his GOP colleagues are privately receptive to his proposals.

Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL), an Army combat veteran, wrote an op-ed in The New York Times last week calling for a ban on assault and tactical weapons like the kind he used while in combat. He said since he returned to Congress Monday, Republicans have come up to him and told him “good job for taking a stand.”

“Many of them have come up to me, you know, kind of more so one-on-one, a little bit quietly. You know how that is,” he said during an interview on CNN Tuesday morning. “They’re not necessarily wanting to have this conversation in front of everybody, They’re saying ‘Hey, good job on you. Good job on taking a stand. Good job in saying that. How is that playing? What are people saying to you back in your district?’ They’re really wanting to know what is the reception about what I’ve heard about what I’ve said.”

Mast is one of very few Republicans who has expressed any type of support on a weapons ban following the mass shooting at the Florida high school earlier this month that left 17 people dead. In his Times op-ed he argued that the assault rifle is too similar to the “most lethal” weapons he used to kill enemies while in combat.



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