Congressmen Donalds, Díaz-Balart a no on tougher gun legislation

America’s two back-to-back mass shootings in Atlanta and Boulder have renewed the call for gun control.

Republican Congressman Mario Díaz-Balart said there’s work to be done on gun laws, but that job belongs to Congress.

Díaz-Balart said he does not want President Joe Biden to take action on his own. Díaz-Balart represents Florida’s 25th congressional district which includes southwestern Miami-Dade County and parts of Collier County.

Díaz-Balart was in Collier County on Wednesday for an event at a hospital. When asked by a WINK News reporter if now was the time to act on gun control, Díaz-Balart did not directly answer the question.

Instead he said: “What would be catastrophic is if President Biden continues to do things by executive order.”

On Wednesday, Vice President Kamala Harris said an executive order is not off the table. Harris called for new gun safety laws during an interview with CBS.

“This is not about getting rid of the second amendment, it’s simply about saying we need reasonable gun safety laws,” Harris said. “There is no reason we have assault weapons on the streets of a civil society, they are weapons of war. They are designed to kill a lot of people quickly.”

But Díaz-Balart said he doesn’t believe the government “should take away decent American’s rights because somebody may do something bad with a weapon.”

Congressman Byron Donalds, R-Naples, said guns are just tools used for mass violence.

“It happens in many societies,” Donalds said. “We have to focus on what the root cause is.”

Both Díaz-Balart and Donalds agree the root cause is mental illness. They said what Democrats want to do, ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, does not address the issue.