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Washington, D.C. – In an interview with CNN this afternoon, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) discussed his votes on two gun-related amendments in the Senate earlier today.

Rubio voted against a procedural motion to table (or strike down) Sen. Ron Johnson’s amendment #4859, which Rubio co-sponsored. Among its provisions, the amendment would ensure that prospective gun purchases or transfers that are flagged in the background check process as being on the “No Fly” or “Selectee List” are listed appropriately through court proceedings.

U.S. Senator Marco Rubio
CNN
June 23, 2016
https://youtu.be/47N_k8_s8Vk

“I voted for a second proposal by Senator [Ron] Johnson that encapsulated a lot of what [Senator Susan Collins] offered but improved on the things that I wanted to see improved on. The due process part is important. For example, it costs today between $10,000 and $15,000 potentially to go to a court of appeals.

“If you erroneously end up on a no-fly list, or a selectee list, unless you can come up with $10,000 or 15,000 to hire a lawyer, even if you get your fees back upfront, it’s going to be hard and intimidating to go to a federal court.

“A lot of lawyers want to be paid on the front end, number one, and number two, interacting with a federal court system is a pretty intimidating process and some of the evidence that was going to be offered against you, if it was classified, you wouldn’t be allowed to see what it is that they’re using against you.

“Here’s what I support. I want to support something that would have prevented what happened in Orlando. And the way to prevent that, I believe, is to have, number one, a better way of not just investigating people but keeping them on those lists, a way that notifies law enforcement when that has happened, making it harder for people to obtain a gun.

“But let me be honest with you, if that killer had not been able to get those guns from that store, but he was determined to carry-out a jihadist attack, he would have bought a gun from the black market, or he would have built himself a bomb like what we saw in Boston.”

…

“A determined criminal or a determined terrorist will be able to get their hands on weapons. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t make it harder for them to do it. The key is the notification provision because what could have happened here is a look-back, which the Johnson proposal had.

“Suddenly you have a guy you were looking at for terrorism, you get this alert that he’s just bought two guns within three days and that might have changed the way the FBI approached it. Under the law I voted for, we would have been able to arrest him for that.”

Watch this portion of the interview here.