Sen. McCain: To think that somehow gun control is the answer, in my view, that has to be proved.
U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) spoke with CNN’s Candy Crowley about the Colorado theater shooting, gun control, foreign policy and more on CNN’s State of the Union with Candy Crowley. A highlight is after the jump and a full transcript will be posted on http://archives.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/sotu.html.
MANDATORY CREDIT: CNN’s “State of the Union”
Sen. John McCain: “Well, just briefly, it’s a terrible tragedy and that bears repeating. But I hope also that the folks in Colorado could look at what we did in Tucson. It was great healing. The president of the United States came and gave a great speech. It was really — our community and our state united. And I hope that the people of Aurora, and the state of Colorado, will also begin on that. It is tough, but I think that we have emerged in Arizona where there has been significant improvement. And so I hope that everybody knows how tough it is as well.”
VIDEO: McCain: U.S. failure to lead in Syria
http://cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/bestoftv/2012/07/22/exp-sotu-mccain-united-nations-syria-israel-foreign-relation-assad-regime.cnn.html
VIDEO: McCain: More gun control not the answer
http://cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/bestoftv/2012/07/22/exp-sotu-mccain-gun-control-violence-aurora-theater-massacre-columbine-virginia-tech-.cnn.html
Highlighted Excerpt
THIS IS A RUSH FDCH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CROWLEY: But, you know, we kind of are where we are where we are. So like as of right now, we are still sort of working through the U.N. or trying to work through the U.N., and you laugh, I mean, is…
MCCAIN: How many times…
CROWLEY: Do you just consider…
MCCAIN: How many times do we have to try that? Kofi Annan’s plan has been an abject failure, we keep supporting that. We keep hoping — pushing this reset button with Russia that somehow they and China will — we are now bound by the decisions of the U.N. Security Council which are dictated by Russia and China.
What do we need to do? We need to get arms and equipment to them. We need to establish a buffer zone and…
(CROSSTALK)
CROWLEY: U.S. arms, you want to get U.S. arms to them. You don’t…
MCCAIN: Sure, why not? Why not? Russian arms are coming in. Iranians are on the ground. Meanwhile, the Iranians are helping Bashar al-Assad and they are committing acts of — they are committing terrorist acts around the world — they are planning on terrorist acts. The talks with Iran on their nuclear development have broken down and where is the United States of America?
The president has not yet in my memory in recent times spoken up for the people who are being slaughtered in the streets of Aleppo, Homs, Damascus, and others today.
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