Brennan Presses Todd Blanche On If Gun Law Failures Contributed to WHCD Shooting

Margaret Brennan, the moderator of CBS News’ Face the Nation, spoke to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanch on Sunday morning, who confirmed that the gunman who stormed the White House Correspondents’ Dinner the night before was targeting Trump administration officials. Brennan and Blanche’s lengthy discussion covered a range of issues, with Brennan pressing the top DOJ official on whether or not weak gun laws contributed to the incident.

Brennan noted during the interview, “So the alleged shooter, as we just said, had multiple weapons in his possession. Here in the District of Columbia, open carry is not permitted.”

“You just said he traveled from California across the country by train. At this point, are you thinking at the federal level of changing security protocols in any way — for example, to match on trains what you are expected to go through when you fly, where you do have to declare a weapon when you cross state lines? How did he travel by train without any challenge and arrive here in the nation’s capital?” she asked.

Blanche replied, “And look, this isn’t about, in my mind, changing the law or making the laws more restrictive around possession of firearms. It appears he purchased these firearms over the past couple of years.”

“We don’t know how those firearms ended up in his possession in D.C. We can make some assumptions based upon what I just said about how he got to D.C., but I don’t think the narrative here is about changing laws or making our laws more restrictive. This is about law enforcement who are doing their jobs and a suspect who tried to do something and failed miserably,” Blanche added.

Brennan pressed further, “Well, I’m not talking about changing the law in terms of possession of a firearm. I’m asking about crossing state lines with that firearm and arriving in the capital. If you try to fly, you do have to have your firearms declared in some way. You don’t when you get on a train.”

Blanche replied, “Well, look, you are talking about — I mean, if we’re asking the question, let’s talk about changing the laws. And I don’t think that’s something that we should be focused on right now in any way, shape, or form. OK, not a loophole. There are lots of ways that — yeah.”

“So I mean, look, we don’t, and we also don’t know — we don’t have all the answers this morning. We’re still looking into what happened, how he got the guns, if he got them legally. But what we do know is that he tried to use them. He did have two firearms and some knives on his person when he tried to use them. And he was stopped before he got anywhere near the president, before he got near any of us who were in the room at the time that this occurred. And that’s — again, we can’t overlook, and I’m not suggesting you are, but we cannot overlook the great work of the Secret Service last night,” Blanche concluded.

Brennan agreed, “No, absolutely. We’re all thankful for that.”

Watch the clip above via NBC News.

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