DeSantis responds to Iowa school shooting, declines to offer support for federal gun policy changes 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) avoided saying if he would support any federal gun control regulations Thursday, when a school shooting in Iowa resulted in multiple injuries.

DeSantis, who has focused much of his presidential campaign in the Hawkeye State ahead of its first-in-the-nation caucuses, also voiced support for Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R), who has endorsed him, and local law enforcement after the shooting.

“I don’t support infringing the rights of law-abiding citizens with respect to the ability to exercise their constitutional rights,” DeSantis said in an NBC News interview. “I know these [regulations] can be used to try to target things, and a lot of the things that are proposed would not have even prevented any of these [shootings].”

The shooting at a high school in Perry, Iowa, injured multiple students and resulted in the death of the gunman, The Associated Press reported Thursday. Students described a traumatic experience at the school.

The Florida governor said lawmakers should focus on mental health in order to combat school shootings, while noting that a motive is unclear in the Perry incident.

“For whatever reason, there are people in our society that really get a kick out of doing this,” DeSantis said. “And you have people that put it online and do all that. And that’s an underlying sickness in society. And I think that involves things like mental health.”

“We obviously have a responsibility to create safe environments,” he continued. “Federal government is probably not going to be leading that effort, I think it is more of a local and state issue.”

He pointed to his record in Florida, where he led the state’s legislative response to the Parkland, Fla., school shooting that killed 17 people in 2018.

“One of the things I’ve done as governor of Florida was respond to the Marjory Stoneman Douglas [High School] shooting that happened before I was governor. We got a recommendations report, and we’ve done over a billion dollars for school security and involves a lot of different things,” he said. 

“But as the father of three young kids who are in school — first grade, kindergarten and pre-K — all we want is parents to have safety in the schools. So we’ve put a lot of emphasis on this,” he added.

The shooting comes just over a week before the Iowa caucuses, set for Jan. 15.