CNN’s Brooke Baldwin confronted a Florida lawmaker on Wednesday, demanding an answer on why the Republican-controlled state legislature chose to declare pornography a health risk but declined debate on a separate gun control bill.
“Why is pornography a bigger health risk than semi-automatic weapons in the hands of a deranged individual?” Baldwin repeatedly asked Florida state Rep. Matt Caldwell.
In Tuesday’s session — less than a week after 17 people were killed in a shooting at a Florida high school — the Florida House of Representatives shut down debate on a bill that would ban assault weapons and large-capacity ammunition magazines. The bill had not passed committee, leading Caldwell to describe the move to Baldwin as a political “stunt” by a Democratic lawmaker.
Also on Tuesday, the legislature advanced a bill to declare pornography a public health risk.
“Why is pornography worthy of a debate and not semi-automatic weapons? Just answer me that,” Baldwin said to Caldwell, later getting heated when he said a gun control bill would need to pass the subcommittee process before being debated on the House floor. “Stop going back to your talking points, sir. Stop,” the CNN anchor demanded.
Survivors of last week’s shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida spoke at the state’s capitol Wednesday, demand action from state lawmakers on the issue of gun control.
“We’re going to have that conversation in committee through the process that we use for every bill that we’ve ever passed through the House and off the floor,” Caldwell said. “We’re not going to circumvent that process for any issue. The point of that is to hear everybody’s voices, make sure that we do the right thing. Something that’s going to be effective, [and] not just pull a political stunt.”
Watch the segment above.