Rubio criticizes banning ‘assault weapons,’ offers concessions at CNN Townhall (VIDEO)

By Christen Smith

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio stood alone in his defense of gun rights during a CNN Townhall hosted Wednesday night, criticizing the shortsightedness of restrictive laws banning “assault weapons.”
Rubio appeared on stage at the BB&T Center in Sunrise, Florida — less than a 20 minutes drive from Parkland, where a 19-year-old former student gunned down 17 students and staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School exactly one week earlier. The only Republican who accepted CNN’s invitation to appear — both President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Rick Scott declined — Rubio fielded questions from a grieving community alongside U.S. Sen. Bill Neslon and state Rep. Ted Deutch, both Democrats.
“I’m saying that the problems that we’re facing here today cannot be solved by gun laws alone,” Rubio said during a line of questioning about banning AR-15s and similar rifles.  “If I believe that that law would have prevented this from happening, I would support it.”
Rubio waded into the specifics of the 1994 assault weapons ban, describing how the flawed language of the legislation outlawed roughly 220 semiautomatic rifles, while leaving 2,000 similar firearms untouched.
“It allows legal 2,000 other types of gun that are identical,” he said. “Identical, in the way that they

Source: Guns.com