CNN anchor holds heated gun control interview with Florida legislator

CNN’s Brooke Baldwin went head-to-head with Florida state Rep. Matt Caldwell (R) on Wednesday after Republican lawmakers in the state legislature voted down a motion to debate a ban on assault weapons.

The interview on CNN became contentious after Caldwell suggested that lawmakers should be considering proposals that would prevent deadly mass shootings from happening in the future. 

“The worst outcome in my mind is that we put forward some proposal, we ban something just at a whim without really going through the time or the process, and it doesn’t make any difference. And so next time you have a school shooting, then what do you say?”

{mosads}

“Rep. Caldwell, I don’t want to talk about the next time,” Baldwin interrupted. 

“I don’t know about when you were young. When I was young we had fire drills, we had tornado drills. I mean, these young people today have murder drills,” she said. “The status quo is unacceptable.”

Caldwell said that lawmakers would consider proposals, but argued that the motion rejected by Republican lawmakers on Tuesday would have brought to the floor a measure that had not gone through the committee process. 

That bill, which would ban the sale and possession of assault weapons and large-capacity magazines, has been stuck in a Florida House subcommittee and has not yet been heard.

Caldwell called the vote on Tuesday to consider the bill a “political stunt” by Democrats.

The push by Democratic state lawmakers came nearly a week after police say Nikolas Cruz, 19, opened fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., killing 17 people and leaving 14 others injured. 

The shooting reignited an intense national debate over the country’s gun control laws, particularly whether to ban assault-style weapons, like the one allegedly used by Cruz.