Adam Schiff says he's 'tired' of GOP colleagues 'protecting the rights of mass shooters'
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) wasn't comforted by President Trump's remarks on Monday in response to the mass shootings over the weekend in El Paso and Dayton, which left 31 people dead.
The El Paso shooting suspect is believed to have posted a screed online saying the massacre was "a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas." Trump, who has used the word "invasion" to refer to immigrants arriving at the southern border, said the U.S. has to "condemn racism, bigotry, and white supremacy." Schiff told ABC 7 Los Angeles that "to hear the president talk today about we all need to be united — well he's the biggest part of this problem in terms of using this incendiary language, this dehumanizing language about people coming to this country being invaders. This is the same stuff the El Paso shooter was talking about in his manifesto."
It's past time for Congress to work on gun control regulations, Schiff said, and he wants to see lawmakers quickly close a major loophole. "Most Americans don't realize you can go to a gun store and be turned down because you're a felon and you can leave the store and buy that exact same gun off the back of someone's truck, legally," he said. "That makes no sense to anyone." Schiff added that he's tired of nothing getting done and his Republican colleagues "protecting the rights of mass shooters instead of the rights to their constituents to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
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There has been an uptick in arrests of domestic terrorism suspects, Schiff said, and "the threat domestically from white supremacist violence now I think is eclipsing the threat from the doctrinations of ISIS and al-Qaida and the like in terms of domestic crimes."
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Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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