“The View” pointed fingers at Republicans on Wednesday following the Robb Elementary School mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas.
The gunman, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, opened fire in a classroom killing at least 19 students and two adults Tuesday. An unidentified Border Patrol agent rushed into the building and fatally shot Ramos.
“The View” co-hosts responded to Democratic Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy’s speech on the Senate floor Tuesday night pleading with his colleagues to act in preventing another mass shooting.
“So, that’s the question: what are we doing?” Goldberg began. “Because why are we always at square one with this? And I swear to God, if I see another Republican senator talk about their heart being broken, I’m gonna go punch somebody. I can’t take it, and their thoughts and prayers. If their thoughts and prayers were really with everybody, you’d have done something by now. It’s not like anybody’s not trying to make this happen. What the hell is going on?”
Co-host Joy Behar said she wants Republicans to “stop gaslighting” her by claiming it is people, not guns, that kill one another.
“I want them to stop gaslighting me, also. Stop saying, ‘It’s not guns that kill people, it’s people that kill people.’ It’s guns that kill people, okay? Stop saying the opposite,” Behar said. “Stop saying that mental illness is behind this. There’s mental illness in every country in the world, and they don’t have this problem. So, stop gaslighting me on that. And stop saying you can have a good guy stop a bad guy with a gun. We have seen in both of these shootings in the past three weeks, that a good guy tried and could not do it. So, stop gaslighting us.”
Behar then blamed campaign financing by the gun lobby for the lack of action, pointing to Republican Utah Sen. Mitt Romney taking large sums of money from the National Rifle Association (NRA). (RELATED: Mika Brzezinski Chokes Up While Talking About Texas Shooting)
“We can talk about all the things that have gone into this, but these are lives,” Goldberg continued. “These are little children.”
Co-host Ana Navarro claimed Republicans, not Congress, “are standing in the way” of preventing mass shootings, citing a gun reform bill passed by the House of Representatives that has failed to pass the Senate.
“Republicans are being held hostage by the NRA, which is a gun lobby and a special interest that holds the purse strings,” Navarro said. “It’s not the money from constituents, it’s the money from the gun industry and the special interests. So, I would like Republicans to show the same energy that they do for banning books and banning conversations about gays and banning conversations about black history and regulating my uterus.”
“I want them to show the same energy for banning guns. There is no reason why an 18-year-old should have access to weapons of war that can kill children in a matter of seconds,” she continued.
