WASHINGTON — Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul said that the families of the victims in the Newtown shooting were being used as “props” by President Obama and others who were “politicizing the tragedy.”
“The one thing that’s disappointed me about — I think gun control’s a legitimate issue for our country to debate, and where and how we can fix the problems with violence,” Paul said at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast. “And I’m a parent, and I have three boys, and I hate to see them using people, I think, as props, and politicizing the tragedy.”
“When I see the father and the mothers and them testifying, and I know they’re coming voluntarily and they want to come and be part of the debate, but it just saddens me to see them and I think that in some cases the president has used them as props and that disappoints me,” Paul went on.
He added that he does not support the gun proposals currently on the table “because not one of the proposals really would have addressed the tragedy.”