Buttigieg: Blaming gun violence on school doorways is ‘definition of insanity’

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said on Sunday that blaming the design of school doorways for gun violence in the U.S. is the “definition of insanity.” 

During an appearance on ABC’s “This Week,” moderator George Stephanopoulos asked Buttigieg what he would be doing about the problem if he were still the mayor of South Bend, Ind.

“Well, the worst part of the job of being mayor is talking to families of people who have lost their loved ones and knowing that nothing you can do will bring those loved ones back,” Buttigieg told Stephanopoulos. 

Buttigieg also said there is “a horrific scourge of gun violence in this country,” adding that “every mayor is doing around the country, you take the steps that you can to reduce community violence, to invest in partnerships, to make sure that you’ve taken the steps you can locally.”

“But you’re also looking at Washington to say ‘Will anything be different this time?’ Will we actually acknowledge the reasons why we are the only country, the only developed country where this happens on a routine basis?” he asked. 

“And the idea that us being the only developed country where this happens routinely, especially in terms of the mass shootings, is somehow a result of the design of the doorways on our school buildings, is the definition of insanity if not the definition of denial,” he said. 

His remarks came two weeks after Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said that schools should implement bulletproof doors in each classroom as a response to the incident at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 students and two of their teachers were killed by a lone gunman. 

On Saturday alone, after four people were killed and 28 others were wounded in a string of mass shootings across the U.S.

President Biden last week pleaded for Congress to address gun violence, asking them to pass laws to expand background checks, implement a national red flag law system and ban the sale of assault-style rifles.