Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro vowed to “maximize executive authority” to stop gun violence if he becomes president.
On Saturday, a gunman opened fire in West Texas killing seven people and injuring at least 21 after a routine traffic stop turned violent.
Castro — who is one of the 10 Democratic presidential primary candidates to qualify for the third round of debates — responded to the shooting in his home state of Texas, vowing that he would take ever executive action legally available to curb gun violence.
“If I were president right now, I would do two things. First of all, I would maximize executive authority to do what we can to keep our families safer from gun violence. For instance, we would immediately redefine who is a firearms dealer so that anybody who sells more than five firearms in a year is classified that way and has to conduct universal background checks. We would also push legislation in Congress to get common-sense gun safety legislation done and put as much pressure on the swing state Republican senators who are up for re-election in 2020 to get them to go with something that we can compromise on, at least universal background checks. I think we can do more than that in the future.”
Castro also said he’s willing to “push the envelope” to address gun violence, noting that he knows it is “politically divisive” to target gun ownership. – READ MORE