On Sunday, Parkland survivor Kyle Kashuv appeared on “Face the Nation” to discuss gun violence and the #MarchForOurLives.
During his segment, which lasted approximately five minutes, Kashuv began by noting his disappointment that he wasn’t invited to speak at Saturday’s March to offer his perspective.
The following is Kashuv’s exchange with host Margaret Brennan:
BRENNAN: And your point of view is what? You don’t agree with the agenda that they’re laying out there in terms of restrictions on assault weapons?
KASHUV: Well, yeah. I talked to Senators, and I looked at all the facts, and they all point in the same direction, that a ban on assault weapons will not solve this issue. …
BRENNAN: And restrictions on high-capacity magazines?
KASHUV: That won’t solve the issue. What we’ve seen is that there are certain things such as enforcing the regulation that’s currently in law — I mean, we’ve seen on so many different levels that the “cowards of Broward” failed, the FBI failed, Sheriff Scott Israel failed. So many different multilayered levels failed in Parkland, and it’s absolutely reprehensible that I didn’t see one single poster yesterday at the march that said “eff Sheriff Scott Israel.”
BRENNAN: So, you are a survivor. You lived through this assault yourself. What do you think would have prevented another student like you from going through something similar?
KASHUV: Well look, I mean, this kid was flagged. He was flagged by Child Protective Services … he was flagged by the FBI; he was flagged so many different times by the Broward Sheriff’s Office, and it’s — we need to see that we have to hold our government accountable. We have to because this can happen again if our government does not do what it’s supposed to do. And I find it ironic that after all this — and we’ve seen so many different government failures — we want to trust the government even more.
BRENNAN: … How many other fellow students support your way of thinking?
KASHUV: There’s a silent minority at Stoneman Douglas who agrees with me completely. Something called the Marshal Program, which was registered and implemented in Florida — which would allow properly trained officers, and veterans, unemployed veterans to acquire the training to protect our schools because we’ve seen in Maryland that the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. …
BRENNAN: You would have liked more armed guards at the school?
KASHUV: Absolutely. I mean, we saw it in Maryland. He stopped the shooter; he did his job — and had the cowards of Broward done their job, I think that the count in Parkland would have been much lower. … The only way to stop an active shooter on campus is to have another person to eliminate them.
BRENNAN: In your meetings with people on Capitol Hill and at the White House, did you get any promises to take action? Did they tell you anything would be done to follow through on what you’re laying out?
KASHUV: Every single Senator that I have spoken with does not want to see this happen. I spoke with Senator Marco Rubio. He cares so much about this, and it pains me to see how he’s being represented in the media.
BRENNAN: But did they promise to do any of the things that you’re asking for?
KASHUV: They promised to fight tooth and nail to make sure this will never happen again. But we have to make sure that the laws that we are enacting don’t hurt America on a national scale, and that’s why I think that we have to sit down with all members of this issue … and debate this and find a common, middle ground because that’s the only way that we’re gonna protect the American people.
The Maryland incident mentioned by Kashuv took place on March 20. When a shooter opened fire at Great Mills High School in Maryland, the school’s trained resource officer took action, shooting and killing the attacker.
Source: The Daily Wire
