Republican Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) said Monday that his position on the Second Amendment has not changed. His support for it is “as strong as ever.” The House Majority Whip almost died after being gunned down in mid-June and just returned to the House. He needs a motorized scooter to get around.

In an interview with Martha McCallum of Fox News, Scalise said his views had not changed on the Second Amendment, even given the atrocity in Las Vegas. “I think it’s fortified it, because first of all, you’ve got to recognize that when there’s a tragedy like this, the first thing we should be thinking about is praying for the people that were injured and doing whatever we can to help them and help law enforcement. We shouldn’t first be thinking of promoting a political agenda.”

The demand for gun control after such an event “usually comes from people on the far left who already want gun control on their own,” he told The Washington Post. “They want somehow some transformational event to happen that’s going to convert somebody’s political viewpoints that are based in decades of understanding and studying the history of our country.”

It Touches Your Heart

Speaking to McCalllum, Scalise said the first thing he did when he heard of Las Vegas’ deadly mass shooting was to pray. “It touches your heart. The first thing I think of is to pray for those people that are still fighting for their lives in the hospitals in Las Vegas. … There’s still people fighting for their lives and we ought to pray for them.”

He added that the proposed gun control bills wouldn’t have changed anything. “The gunman actually cleared background checks. To promote some kind of gun control is the wrong way to approach this.”

With his own shooting, he pointed out, the Capitol police were there with their own guns. He added that no one tells the stories of regular Americans who “use guns every single day to protect themselves from criminals.”

In his Post interview, he said that people who think taking people’s guns away will stop such killings “don’t understand, number one, what the Second Amendment stands for and why it’s in our Bill of Rights.”

“So you’re as strong on the Second Amendment as ever?” McCallum asked. “Absolutely,” Scalise replied.

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