PA Bill Number: HB2311
Title: Establishing the School Mental Health Screening Grant and Development Program.
Description: Establishing the School Mental Health Screening Grant and Development Program. ...
Last Action: Laid on the table
Last Action Date: Sep 23, 2024
Ex-DHS head - Gun control wouldn't have stopped Orlando attack :: 06/27/2016
Tom Ridge, who served as secretary of Homeland Security under President George W. Bush, criticized Democrats for trying to pass gun reform after the mass shooting in Orlando.
"You kind of wonder what kind of glasses some of the Democrats are wearing as they look at that horrible tragedy," Ridge said on "The Cats Roundtable" radio show with John Catsimatidis.
Following the massacre at an Orlando nightclub that left 49 dead and 53 injured, House Democrats held a sit-in on the chamber floor to push for a vote on gun reform.
Several pieces of gun reform legislation were rejected by the Senate last week, including a bill that would ban those on terrorist watchlists from buying guns.
Ridge calls that request reasonable but said it wouldn't have prevented the attacks in Orlando.
"The notion that somehow gun control would have eliminated that is just an absolute disconnect," he said.
"I do think there's some reasonable people on both sides of the aisle and even within the [National Rifle Association] that probably do support the notion that if you're on a terrorist watchlist and if you can't get on an airplane, you probably shouldn't be about to purchase a firearm. OK. I get that. ... But this is totally unrelated to the incident in Orlando where the murderer pledged allegiance to [the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria] and was probably inspired and converted by the virtue of the internet and some of his travels."
