Sen.-elect Jeff Flake (R-AZ) came out on Wednesday against the National Rifle Association’s proposal to have Congress require someone to be armed at every public school in the nation following last month’s massacre in Newtown, Conn.
“I was troubled by that proposal, greatly troubled by that kind of Washington mandate, federal involvement in local schools,” Flake told Phoenix television station KTVK.
A six-term congressman who won a nasty Senate race this year against Democratic former U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona, Flake was endorsed by the NRA, which spent more than $320,000 to get him elected. The group’s executive vice president, Wayne LaPierre, even went to Arizona to stump for Flake during the campaign, and the organization gave the congressman its “A” rating.
Flake had been largely silent about guns since the massacre, telling the Arizona Republic shortly after the shooting that it was still too soon to talk about gun laws.
Watch the interview with KTVK:
