MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, who had received an A rating from the
National Rifle Association (NRA) while he was in Congress, says that
after last week’s massacre of 20 elementary school children that “the
ideologies of my past career were no longer relevant,” and he is now
backing a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity clips.

In an unusual commentary segment Monday on Morning Joe, Scarborough
connected to the recent tragedy by noting that his own children were
the age of those killed and one of his children has Asperger’s
syndrome.

“Politicians can no longer be allowed to defend the status quo,” he
explained. “They must instead be forced to defend our children.
Parents can no longer take no for an answer from Washington when the
topic turns to protecting our children. The violence we see spreading
from shopping malls in Oregon to movie theaters in Colorado to college
campuses in Virginia to elementary schools in Connecticut — it’s being
spawned by a toxic brew of popular culture, a growing mental health
crisis and the proliferation of combat-style weapons.”

“I am a conservative Republican who received the NRA’s highest ratings
over four terms in Congress,” he continued. “I saw this debate over
guns as a powerful, symbolic struggle between individual rights and
government control… I’ve spent the last few days grasping for
solutions and struggling for answers, while daring to question my
long-held beliefs on these subjects.”

Scarborough concluded: “I knew that day that the ideologies of my past
career were no longer relevant to the future that I want, that I
demand for my children. Friday changed everything. It must change
everything. We all must begin anew and demand that Washington’s old
way of doing business is no longer acceptable. Entertainment moguls
don’t have an absolute right to glorify murder while spreading mayhem
in young minds across America. And our Bill of Rights does not
guarantee gun manufacturers the absolute right to sell military-style,
high-caliber, semi-automatic combat assault rifles with high-capacity
magazines to whoever the hell they want. It is time for Congress to
put children before deadly dogmas.”