CNN "CNN Newsroom" - Transcript: Gun Control Debate

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

HILL: Well, among the proposals the president didn't mention today, banning assault-style weapons, which is something my next guest actually is talking about. Florida Congressman Brian Mast wrote an opinion piece in "The New York

Times" titled: "I am a Republican, I appreciate assault weapons and I support a ban."

Congressman Mast joining me from now Washington.

Sir, we appreciate you taking some time for us. In your piece, you wrote -- and I'm quoting here -- "I don't fear becoming a political casualty."

Do your colleagues on the Hill feel the same way? Because you really stuck your neck out in many ways in this piece here.

REP. BRIAN MAST (R), FLORIDA: I think politics lends itself to people fearing becoming political casualties.

But I always tell people and I told a lot of people back home this week the one sentence they always heard me say was that you have got to serve this country in Washington the way that every soldier does it on the battlefield. That's without regard for personal gain and without regard for personal sacrifice.

That's how everybody ended up in Arlington National Cemetery. That's the way they serve. That's the way you have to serve in Washington.

HILL: And so that's how you're serving, as you point out there, but are you confident that others will follow suit with you?

MAST: You know, you have to be an inspiration every single day.

Or, rather, you're going to be an inspiration every single day. It's whether it's for positive or whether it's for something negative. You're going to inspire people around you. I'm going to try my best to inspire people for change that matters, change that can save lives, change that I believe that can make a difference.

That's the way that we have to do things. We can't come all this way to be representatives, to be congressmen and congresswomen and not follow our heart and not try to do the best things that we can for our community. If we do, we have wasted a whole lot of time in our lives.

HILL: We have heard a lot even just today about how important the president's leadership will be here. You have been a supporter of the president's. The president saying today, look, if Congress doesn't do anything on bump stocks, I will take care of it myself.

The president has supported efforts in the past -- I'm thinking of health care standing there in the Rose Garden applauding everything that happened -- and then weeks later calling it mean behind your back and doubled back. Do you believe that you have the president's full support here?

MAST: I haven't had a conversation with the president yet. I'm asking for a conversation with the president. And I'm asking for him to apply the same logic that he did with the travel ban to what's going on with the weapons that people have access to. I don't think anybody can go out there and say that they're confident

that the FBI is going to screen out or weed out the next Omar Mateen, who was the Orlando shooter, or weed out the next Stephen Paddock, who was the Las Vegas shooter, or weed out the next Nikolas Cruz, the shooter at Parkland.

Nobody has confidence in that occurring right now. So let's take that same model, that same model that he applied to the travel ban, see who has access. What do they have access to? What are the agencies doing to keep everybody safe and prevent access in the wrong hands?

[15:05:05]

And let's look at that for 90 or 120 days, and then let's get back to the American people with some very real commonsense reforms. That's what I would like to see him do.

HILL: You're laying out part of this, and you also lay out in your piece in "The Times" last Friday defining too who results a tactical or assault firearm. You support background checks, banning the sales of bump stocks and other add-ons, increasing age limits.

You bring up mental health concerns, which a number of people have. Would you also support mandatory training?

MAST: Well, if you're going to carry a firearm, you have to have training for it ,if that's what you're asking, would I support mandatory training on firearms.

I always encourage people to go out there and have a conceal carry. I have been a conceal carry reciprocity supporter. And I think, if you want to do that, you have to got out there and get training, then get more training and more training. Be proficient with it.

Know how to be safe with it. Understand the difference between identifying a threat and identifying an innocent civilian, and get trained on those things. It only happens through a great deal of repetition with your firearm.

So especially when you're having that conversation about the idea of anybody in a school setting having access to a firearm, there are a lot more safety concerns. We have to remember that teachers are people too who have their own issues in terms of things going on with work and family.

You can't have a teacher that leaves a firearm laying on their desk or maybe doesn't have that training where they can identify friend from foe. So there's a lot of concerns there when we're having that piece of the conversation that the president has also brought up.

(CROSSTALK)

HILL: And I spoke with a student a short time ago who's a survivor of the shooting in Parkland who said to me this raises a great deal of concern for him just to know that a teacher would have a firearm. Is that the right road to go down, arming a teacher? Or do we need to

focus more on not letting those guns through the front door in the first place?

MAST: Well, I think we have to focus on all of that. One of the examples that I give people from one the counties that I represent is Martin County, Florida.

They know that I'm Congressman Brian Mast, but when I go in there to speak to some of the students, like at their JROTC or something like that, they still make me show my I.D. before I walk in the door. There has to be that basic level of physical security for letting anybody in the doors of our schools. That's basic.

That's something that needs to happen. But I'm not going to say there aren't great candidates out there in terms of teachers that could be carrying firearms and have already been highly trained in carrying weapons, those that have been in the Marines or the Army or other branches of the service, those that have been in law enforcement, those that have taken it upon themselves to get a great deal of training.

They could be great candidates, but this is something that definitely needs a lot to be looked at.

HILL: You write in your piece too about how when you were a child it was your grandfather who got your first membership to the NRA. You're a longtime member of the NRA. The president today saying, look, there's nothing to be afraid of here with the NRA and it's OK to fight against them sometime.

A, have you heard from the NRA in response to your piece that you penned? And, B, do you believe that there's some room for compromise and for conversation here with the NRA?

MAST: I haven't heard from the NRA since penning my piece, but I think that they have to be a part of the conversation, because the vast majority of the people that the NRA go out there and advocate for and represent in terms of their membership are law-abiding, gun-owning citizens who support the Second Amendment, that unimpeachable, God- given right to go out there and defend ourselves and our families and our home in the way that we see fit.

And they're people that enjoy that camaraderie of going out hunting with some member of their family or maybe just being a collector of the finest firearms or they just like to go out there and enjoy shooting. There's a hundred legal reasons why people like to go out and enjoy marksmanship and sportsmanship and firearms, and that's why they're members of the NRA.

That's why my grandfather got me that membership to the NRA when I was a young boy. And these people have to be a piece of that conversation, because what they're crying out for is saying, listen, I'm a law-abiding citizen. Don't punish me for something somebody else has done. And that's a very important piece of this conversation. HILL: Congressman Brian Mast, we have to leave it there. Appreciate your time today. Thank you.

MAST: Thank you.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source