‘Point Blank — Are Red Flag Laws Effective?’ CNN’s Kaitlan Collins Relentlessly Challenges DeSantis Over Guns

CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins pressed Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) on his failure to attack former President Donald Trump’s character, and challenged him when he danced around the issue, telling him “That’s not answering the question!”

FBI agents surrounded the home of Lewiston Maine mass shooting suspect Robert Card — the fugitive being sought in the at two locations in Lewiston, Maine Wednesday night that has left 18 people dead and 50 or more injured — beginning a standoff that played out for hours live on CNN.

DeSantis was interviewed on Thursday night’s edition of CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins as that standoff ensued, and Collins opened the lengthy sit-down with an extended grilling on red flag laws during which she repeatedly challenged him on his position:

KAITLAN COLLINS: If you don’t think it’s effective in Florida, you don’t think it’s contributing to those to those lower rates. Why is it still in place? Why don’t you move to repeal it because of Republican supermajorities?

RON DESANTIS: Because the Republicans passed it in the legislature before it before I was governor? I mean, they they all they all voted. All right. They all voted on it. I was a candidate at the time. There was different restrictions that I thought violated the Constitution. So I said I would have vetoed the bill. It passed overwhelmingly. And there’s not an appetite amongst them to reverse their votes basically in what they did just a few years ago.

KAITLAN COLLINS: Has — since being governor changed your opinion on how effective it is? I mean, there is a Polk County sheriff, Grady Judd, who you are very familiar with. He’s a conservative. He’s a supporter of yours. He thinks these red flag laws in Florida are actually very effective.

RON DESANTIS: Well, I think I think you have different, different perspectives on that. I mean, I think Grady and some of the other sheriffs like it. I think some others have said that it’s not something that’s effective. But but Grady, I understand he’s a big supporter of the Second Amendment, so he is not using that in a way to try to infringe people’s rights. He’s following due process and he’s going about it in a way that does respect that. I think you see how some of these things get put in other states and it’s more of just an end run around the second because they just don’t like the underlying right to begin with.

KAITLAN COLLINS: So point blank, though, do you think that red flag laws are effective generally?

RON DESANTIS: I don’t think there’s been data to suggest the red flag laws have been effective. I mean, I –.

KAITLAN COLLINS: Even in Florida?

RON DESANTIS: I don’t I don’t think I mean, I think I think it’s anecdotal when people say this or that. But I think what’s ultimately effective is holding people accountable, either through mental adjudication, if they’re if they’re crazy or convicting them when they’re committing crimes.

I mean, a lot of the people that commit crimes, I mean, obviously a shooting like this, catastrophic, a lot of people, the typical crimes that are being committed where one or two people may get killed, they don’t get as much press. But it’s almost always somebody who’s been in the justice system multiple times and then they finally commit a really serious offense. So identifying those and holding them accountable when they’re committing crimes, that is the way you reduce the crime rate.

KAITLAN COLLINS: So it’s safe to say a President DeSantis would not sign any kind of national red flag law.

RON DESANTIS: No, no, I don’t think that’d be appropriate at all.

Watch above via CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins.