Skip to main content

CLTV: Orlando Shooting Response

June 13, 2016
In the News

The following interview aired on CLTV's Politics Tonight on June 13, 2016. A link to the interview can be found here.

Bill Moller: Well yes, another mass shooting, this one more deadly than any before it. Oman Mateen’s actions yesterday morning are being ascribed to the influence of ISIS, homophobia, mental instability, and the availability of high powered weapons. So, what can government do? Also, the impact on and reaction from American Muslims and the LGBT community. These are our three points of discussion tonight. Congressman Mike Quigley is a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and he is Vice Chair of the Congressional LGBT Quality Caucus, and we have him on the phone. Good evening congressman.

MQ: Good evening, thanks for having me on.

Bill Moller: Well congress is not in session right now, but in the past 40 or so hours since this horror happened what have you heard from colleagues as well as from constituents?

MQ: Mostly extraordinary sympathy and sorrow for what’s taken place, and outrage for the ability of this sort of thing to happen. And, as you elude to a lot of references, the ability to acquire weapons designed for a theater of war and weapons that someone who is even on a watch list can acquire if we suspect them to be a terrorist.

Bill Moller: Well, that is the point, they followed him for about 10 months and found out that there is no credible connection they could make to any terrorist tendencies, yet he was still able, without much effort, to acquire guns, including the AR-15 that he used. The American public we well know congressman, is on the side of more gun control. Modest developments, not dramatically new kinds of measures, but is the time now right for some change here?

MQ: Look, I like to think I’m an optimistic person, but I suspect that the fact that nothing happened after Sandy Hook has diminished that. We’re going to keep trying, but I have to make it very plain, even if this killer weren’t on a terror watch list, even if he … no fly list, he could still, with a background check, acquire the gun that he obtained. And even if that rule changed, the fact is even if he was denied because of a background check, as you know he could go to a gun show in nearby Indiana, and acquire anything he wanted without a background check. So I’d like to think that at some point the madness will end. The majority of NRA members want background checks, they don’t want bad people to get guns. It is just amazing to me the stranglehold the NRA has on our congress.

Bill Moller: You are on an Intelligence Committee, was this in any way an Intelligence failure, or the fact that you were just telling me, there have been 70 planned attacks since 9/11 but all but 10 have been thwarted. Do we need to accept that Intelligence agencies just cannot simply stop all of them?

MQ: Well they can’t stop all of them , I think the fear today is a couple things. First of all, what most Americans don’t know is that we have cut back on Homeland security, particularly grants to local communities to fight this type of attack, by 50 percent in the last 5 years. Second, the terrorist are going dark. Where there is a lone wolf, inspired by ISIS, for example, who does not communicate or use his encrypted act, it is extraordinarily difficult to find and stop this person. So there are several aspects to this that are making it more difficult.

Bill Moller: Sting operations have been successful in nabbing would be domestic terrorists, are other measures being discussed to try and get after this lone wolf you just noted?

MQ: Well this is just the need for the Intelligence community to be appropriately funded with the resources they need. As always, there is a balance between protecting the homeland and protecting civil liberties, that’s something we’ve dealt with since the Republic was formed. I think there is an appropriate balance that still works. We’re obviously struggling with that, it is a new world. You know, I tell my constituents, this isn’t our father’s war. The enemy doesn’t wear a uniform, the battle is on the homeland and probably never going to end, and it’s multifaceted. We’ve never had a situation before where the enemy can come through a computer cable and inspire people, and horrible acts, or turn the lights off. So we need to change our focus. We did somewhat after 9/11, but after this attack and many others here, in Brussels and Paris, we need to change our focus here and ask ourselves continually, what really keeps Americans safe?

Bill Moller: Something tangential to our conversation right now, you called for an end to what your determined to be an outdated and discriminatory FDA ruling that many gay men are being prevented from giving blood. Do you think that that will now change?

MQ: Well, it is something I started in 2009. It is a discriminatory policy that science outdates. It is taking a very long to change. We finally got the government to change this ban that banned gay men from giving blood for life to now, a one year deferral where we still have a ways to go. This should be science based, and it should be risk based. I think that we are going to get there very soon, it’s going to take our continued efforts, and, again, the assistance we are getting from the blood banks, American Medical Society, others who realize this policy is outdated.

Bill Moller: You think the … is going to be impetus in seeing that change? Are you planning to do anything specifically?

MQ: Well I was the lead author of the letter and plan to change this since 2009. So we have a renewed letter going into details, working with the HHS and others to change the policy accordingly. I think the American public understands the inherent consistency and the tragic irony at the shooting at the pulse nightclub in which gay men were offering to donate blood and not allowed to, again not based on science.

Issues:EqualityGun Violence Prevention