Faso backs some stricter gun controls
Calls on colleagues to find common ground, scoffs at calls to return donations from NRA
U.S. Rep. John Faso said Tuesday that Congress must investigate why the FBI failed to act on a tip about Florida school shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz, and the congressman characterized calls for him to return campaign contributions from the National Rifle Association as “a political smear.”
Appearing on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal,” a call-in show, the Mid-Hudson region’s freshman congressman also expressed support for tightening background checks for gun buyers, increasing the age to purchase a semiautomatic rifle and outlawing bump stocks, devices that allow semiautomatic rifles to mimic machine guns.
Faso, R-Kinderhook, called on lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle to find “common ground
to fix this problem [and] not sweep it under the rug.”
“I think that’s within our capacity to do, and I do think it’s going to require compromise on both sides,” he said.
Faso is one of 19 GOP congressmen calling on House Speaker Paul Ryan to allow a vote on the Fix NICS Act, which aims to improve compliance with criminal background checks of gun buyers. The act would require federal agencies to outline how they will make sure information gets to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, and it would penalize those that fail to do so. It also would encourage states to maintain background databases to inform NICS and beef up reporting of domestic violence.
The measure was part of a larger bill that passed the House in December but has stalled in the Senate, largely over other provisions, including one that would provide for concealed-carry reciprocity among states.
Faso wants Ryan to schedule a vote on a standalone Fix NICS Act bill, which he said would “correct gaps that exist in the background check system.”
“Because of the situation we’re dealing with today and the overwhelming response, we should move forward and address this particular issue and do it quickly,” he said.
Faso said given the history
of Florida suspect Cruz, “not only shouldn’t he have been able to buy a firearm, he shouldn’t have been able to buy a BB gun.”
Authorities have said police had numerous prior encounters with Cruz and that he had threatened violence against a school. The 19-year-old had been expelled from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., where he is accused of murdering 17 people on Feb. 14.
“The warning signs on this young man were clearly missed on multiple levels and multiple fronts,” Faso said.
The congressman was particularly critical of the FBI and said “one of the first tasks for Congress” will be to investigate how and why the agency failed to act on information about Cruz.
The FBI has said on Feb. 16 that it received a tip in January that Cruz had a “desire to kill” and access to guns and could be plotting an attack, but that its agents failed to investigate.
“Congressmen should figure out and get to the bottom and hold accountable people who missed those signs,” Faso said.
He also said lawmakers “have to seriously look at” raising the legal age to purchase semiautomatic rifles.
“Some 18-, 19-, 20-yearolds are not mature enough to have a weapon of this type,” he said.
And he agreed when one caller to the C-SPAN show said a bill to ban bump stocks should be before Congress now.
Authorities have said Stephen Paddock had a
“To smear all of those people and say they somehow don’t care abut school shootings and other violence is an outright lie.” — U.S. Rep. John Faso, R-Kinderhook
bump stock on the semiautomatic rifle he used to kill 58 people at an outdoor music festival in Las Vegas on Oct. 21, 2017. Paddock, 64, carried out the massacre from the window of a 32nd-floor hotel room before killing himself.
Faso also said Congress should not lead any effort to arm teachers because “you need intense training in order to carry a firearm in a very difficult situation like you might confront in a school shooting.” He said the matter is better left to each state to decide.
Regarding donations to his campaign from the NRA, Faso scoffed at the idea that “a couple of thousand dollars in a campaign that costs millions is a determining factor on one’s position.”
He called such a notion “an outlandish smear” and noted that some NRA members serve as police officers, firefighters and first responders and are “enmeshed in our community.”
“To smear all of those people and say they somehow don’t care abut school shootings and other violence is an outright lie,” he said.