Fox guest suggests we can't ban assault weapons because the government is untrustworthy
Paul Mauro: “In light of things like Russia collusion, Hunter Biden laptop ... how are we going to trust the referee here?
Published
Citation From the March 28, 2023, edition of Fox News' America's Newsroom
BILL HEMMER (ANCHOR): Paul, you can react to that. Also, we know, since it was a private school, they did not employ a resource officer at that school.
PAUL MAURO (RETIRED NYPD INSPECTOR): Yeah, unfortunate. You know, I hate to put it this way, but you can get a retired cop who is at the end of his career, you know, is already — he's licensed to carry a firearm. That's a cheap date. You take a retired cop who wants to contribute, and put him out there in a booth, you're going to stop most things. It's not going to be very expensive, all right? So I would advocate that.
Secondly, regarding assault weapons, I'm not even sure what they mean by that, and I'm not even sure they know what they mean by that, because an AR shoots single shot with each trigger pull. People tend to think, oh an automatic weapon means — an assault weapon, rather, means an automatic weapon, a machine gun. That's not what an AR does.
So this is a very nuanced discussion, and realistically, what it really comes down to is if you are going to put these measures in place, we have to trust the referee. We have to trust the people who are going to potentially enforce this stuff — OK? — if such a ban were ever put in place, if they managed to get over that hump.
And in light of things like Russia collusion, Hunter Biden laptop, the incredible focus on Donald Trump to the exclusion of other things, the fact that Portland and Seattle have burned down — all those cases seem to have gone away — how are we going to trust the referee here? And so you know, think about just the IRS, for instance. They're showing up at Matt Taibbi's door after the Twitter thing? You know, the weaponization of the IRS going back. The Lois Lerner affair. When we are being asked to trust the government to enforce and adjudicate the 2nd Amendment, the second one in our entire Constitution, that's a big ask.
HEMMER: This debate continues and it has for some time. A lot of people are asking the same question that police captain is asking down there in Nashville: Why? Repeatedly. Why? And we'll get a news conference today. Thank you, Paul, for being here.