Prominent conservative televangelist Pat Robertson called for a ban on assault weapons on The 700 Club on Feb. 20, responding to the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., that killed 17 people a week earlier.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I am a gun owner,” Robertson said. “I have hunted. I have shot skeet. I have gotten awards when I was in the Marine Corps for shooting.
"I’ve got no opposition whatsoever to shooting, but for heaven’s sakes, I don’t think that the general population needs to have automatic weapons. It just doesn’t have to have Russian-built or Chinese-built machine guns. It just doesn’t.”
Robertson's comments are a drastic shift from what he has said in the past in regards to gun control. He has previously voiced his support for arming church attendees.
"It's just got to be sensible," he said.
Dozens of teens in Florida marched on the state capital Wednesday, asking lawmakers to ban the sale of assault rifles like the one used in the Parkland shooting. The demonstration came just a day after Florida's Republican-controlled House of Representatives refused to bring up a bill that would block the sale of assault-style rifles.
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