Face the Facts: Blumenthal Discusses Nashville School Shooting, Trump Indictment

Legislation proposed by Gov. Ned Lamont that aims to combat gun violence passed the Connecticut General Assembly's Judiciary Committee.

The committee voted in favor of House Bill 6667 just days after the Nashville school shooting that left three children and three educators dead.

The bill seeks to prevent acts of gun violence including mass shootings, community violence, domestic violence, suicides and accidental shootings, according to the governor's office.

Since the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting in 2012, school across the country have had more cameras installed, secure entry systems and evacuation plans in place - but this still happens.

Is it just access to guns or how does the availability of mental health services factor in? Are we missing even something else in the equation?

NBC Connecticut's Mike Hydeck spoke with Senator Richard Blumenthal (D - Connecticut), who presented the bill and is active on legislation when it comes to gun violence.

Mike Hydeck: So your bill calls for something called creating an Office of Gun Violence. What is that? And how would it work?

Richard Blumenthal: The Office of Gun Violence Prevention would essentially be a point person, to coordinate, to muster resources, to mobilize state and local governments and to reach out to everyday Americans as well as the movement that we have created since Sandy Hook. You know, when I heard about that Nashville tragedy, I had a really deep painful flashbacks to those hours after we learned about Sandy Hook, and the trauma that that community went through. Again, it's going to be duplicated, as it has, across the country. And my heart and prayers went out to that community. But we need more than thoughts and prayers, real action, honor with action. And so the Office of Violence Prevention would be in the Department of Justice. There's an alphabet soup of federal agencies that are supposed to help stop gun violence.

Mike Hydeck: So that means the FBI, the ATF, health organization?

Richard Blumenthal: ATF, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Homeland Security, I could go down the list. But the point is, we need better coordination, and it would build on, here's the important point, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act that is already producing results after its passage last summer. Senator Murphy and I worked on that bill together and the results are really striking. But a lot of progress still has to be done.

Mike Hydeck: So in the Safer Communities Act, what are we seeing as far as changes? What has happened since last summer?

Richard Blumenthal: People under 21 are stopped from buying guns when they have elements in their record, that should forbid it. We're seeing gun trafficking reduced. Confiscation of guns that are transported illegally, more than 200 of them. We're seeing the use of red flag statutes money going out to states to do crisis intervention. In Connecticut, the number of uses of that red flag statute in the first five months of 2022 was 96. It was increased in the next five months to 450. Those numbers are lives saved, people who are dangerous to themselves or others who say, 'I'm going to kill someone,' or 'I'm gonna kill myself.' Their guns are separated from them, at least for some period of time with due process. Those kinds of examples are of these laws working but we know, in Connecticut, we know these laws work because they have demonstrable result. What won't work is inaction.

Mike Hydeck: So let's look at the flip side a little bit. So for those who are against things like closing the gun show loophole, we've heard about this for years, or saying waiting periods just hurt law-abiding gun owners. We hear this from the other side. But as we saw, the guns in Nashville were purchased legally. That person purchased seven of them legally. So is there something in that case that we missed? Was it a mental health situation that we could have addressed earlier? Was it a different way of making sure guns are purchased?

Richard Blumenthal: Well, first, let's be very clear, the Safer Communities Act has not taken a single gun away from any law-abiding person, not one. I respect the Second Amendment. It's the law of the land. Number two, in Nashville, the use of a military style assault weapon, purchased legally, it's a powerful argument for banning the sale of assault weapons. They are legal in Tennessee.

Mike Hydeck: Right. Because the person purchased in Tennessee.

Richard Blumenthal: But here's something else that's really important. Magazines that go in those assault weapons sometimes hold as many as 100 rounds. What we saw in Sandy Hook was that the shooter had to pause when he ran out of rounds, to change magazines. In that brief time, kids escaped. Again and again what we've seen is people can escape when the shooter has to change the magazines that hold the bullets that are shot. And so putting limits on magazines, banning ghost guns, you know, if you talk to police these days, what we're seeing as a major threat to them, not just to everyday citizens, but to our law enforcement, is those guns that have no serial number.

Mike Hydeck: The homemade ones that…

Richard Blumenthal: Can be made on the kitchen table. Right. So those kinds of measures still have to be advocated.

Mike Hydeck: So we got one last question. Obviously yesterday, President Trump was indicted. First time in U.S. history a former president has been indicted. What are your thoughts on this moving forward as the process continues?

Richard Blumenthal: No one is above the law. No matter how powerful that person is. The grand jury made a decision to indict Donald Trump after months of intensive investigation. That grand jury are ordinary, everyday Americans. They made the decision, not the prosecutor. Trump's allies are now belittling, they are disparaging sometimes, frankly, in vile and sickening terms, anti Semitic references. The grand jury made that decision and the legal process has to continue to work. Donald Trump will have all the rights due to any criminal defendant presumed innocent by the justice system, until proven guilty. And I hope that we will have no intimidation from members of Congress. We've had threats of it. Congressional committees saying they're going to subpoena the prosecutor or his records. And no incitement of violence. The former President has talked about death and destruction if he were indicted. He has said that we need to take the nation back. I think we should avoid any kind of invitation or incitement to violence such as we saw before January 6th.