GOP Arkansas Gov. Hutchinson: Uvalde Shooting Not About AR-15, But About School Security, ‘The Human Heart’

Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson (R) said Sunday that the mass shooting in Uvalde was not about the AR-15 rifle, but about the need for better security in schools and the need to better address the mental health crisis in the country.

Appearing on “Face the Nation,” Hutchinson said that the AR-15 was invented long before it was used in a mass shooting, highlighting instead the need to secure schools, to identify dangerous individuals before they can carry out acts of violence, and to train law enforcement to handle dangerous situations.

“It certainly shows that you have to have multiple layers of security to protect the children,” Hutchinson said, arguing that student safety should not be left to just one strategy. “And there’s also the factor of human error. And that’s the reason that you’ve got to have different layers, you can’t rely upon just one technique.”

“School Safety is something that we all have to focus on coming out of the incredible tragedy that we see in Uvalde, we have to look at how we can better secure our schools. And it is about the single point of entry that by blocking it open allowed the gunman to come in, it is about the mental health issues where we’ve got to do better to identify those that are potentially a mass killer,” he continued. “You’ve got to have our private sector, internet providers to do better in using technology to identify these kinds of dangerous violent communications much quicker. And then of course, we have to be able to train our officers properly. I know we’re gonna have to learn a lot more facts as to some of the things that happened in Uvalde. Let’s be patient, let’s learn from them. But we can’t give up on our most precious resource in protecting our children.”

Hutchinson then refuted the idea that the AR-15 should be controlled to prevent future shootings.

“AR-15s were around for 40 years before they were ever used in any type of mass killing or attack,” he said. “And so it is about the human heart, it is about identifying the culprits and going after them. And I think it is a discussion you can have. I come down on the point that that’s not going to be the solution. And it’s going to cause more harm than good … I don’t think that’s a solution. And we shouldn’t focus on that.”