Notebook

WATCH: Parkland Student Kyle Kashuv Takes Stand Against Gun Control in Piers Morgan Interview

Kyle Kashuv, the conservative Parkland student who considers himself a "very strong Second Amendment supporter," is continuing to take a stand against gun control. Kashuv has met with various members of Congress on both sides of the aisle and has had a number of interviews with prominent media figures where he hopes to garner bipartisan support for the STOP School Violence Act of 2018.

In one of his latest interviews, the high school junior talked to British journalist Piers Morgan, well-known for his anti-gun sentiments, on Good Morning Britain.

Throughout the interview, Kashuv held his own and stood up for the Second Amendment and the right of Americans to bear arms. When Morgan would bring up issues or topics irrelevant to the discussion at hand, Kashuv would bring the debate right back to where it needed to be.

"Do you not feel it's weird that in Florida, for example, you can't buy a beer until you're 21, but you can buy an AR-15 gun?" Piers asked.

"That's not the argument at all," Kashuv replied. "Why shouldn't a mother, a single mother, of two be able to defend her children in her own home, who's 20? Why can't a 20-year-old, single mother be able to defend her children? Raising the age from 18 to 21 won't solve the problem. It's simply, like, a reactionary statement to what happened in Parkland."

When Morgan followed up with a statistic that the United States has "more gun deaths than the next 22 richest countries in the world combined," Kashuv replied with the numbers the media doesn't like to bring up.

"Most of the deaths that you see are from suicides," Kashuv stated. He's right. In 2015, The New York Times published a piece stating just that. To follow up, Kashuv also said, "The next majority...is gang-related violence. And stripping away the rights of individuals who are law-abiding citizens, won't solve the problem. And let's say we look at assault rifles, three percent of all gun deaths are with assault rifles. Sixty-eight percent of those are suicides."

Kashuv knows his facts and is beyond impressive. 

Of course, Morgan brought up the mass shooting at Sandy Hook, where 20 children lost their lives when an individual suffering from mental illness was able to get his hands on his parent's AR-15. Piers tried to make the comparison between Sandy Hook and Parkland based on the weapon used, but Kashuv pointed out the glaring difference between the two school shootings.

Unlike the shooting in Sandy Hook where the legally owned firearm ended up in the wrong hands, the Parkland shooter was able to obtain his rifle by passing a background check. But the only reason the Parkland shooter passed a background check and was able to buy his weapon, much like the mass shooter in Sutherland Springs, TX, was because the necessary information to prevent him from purchasing the gun was not in the national background check system. Additionally, several tips to the Broward County Sheriff were ignored, and the FBI did not act on information it had received.

While the blame falls solely on the shooter, it is undeniable that law enforcement failed to act on red flags that could have prevented this horrible tragedy.

 

In a tweet Thursday morning, Kashuv said he had a great time debating Morgan and gave a thank you to the Daily Wire's Ben Shapiro for being an example of how to combat the idea of gun control. A few years ago, Shapiro was in Kashuv's shoes, when he appeared on Morgan's show to discuss the same topic.

Another guest appeared on Good Morning Britain to give a perspective that differed from Kashuv's. The segment can be watched in its entirety here.