Florida state rep talks meeting with students about safety

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Florida state rep talks meeting with students about safety

Parkland, Florida shooting sparks debate about gun control and preventing violence; Florida State Representative Dane Eagle shares insight on 'Your World.'

This is a rush transcript from "Your World," February 21, 2018. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

NEIL CAVUTO, "YOUR WORLD" HOST: Florida Republican State Representative, House Majority Whip Dane Eagle with us right now.

Representative, thank you for taking your time.

Did you get a chance to meet any of these kids today, any of their chaperones, teachers, parents?

DANE EAGLE, R-FLORIDA STATE REPRESENTATIVE: Neil, good to be with you.
Thanks for having me on.

I did. About 30 minutes ago, I had about a dozen of them in my office, had a great, robust discussion with them. I can't tell you how brave these kids are. To have seen and gone through what they just did, and then within days making a trip up here to speak with legislators, it's remarkable.

And I had probably one of the best discussions that I have had yet on this topic with these kids.

CAVUTO: What did they want from you? And what did you tell them?

EAGLE: They wanted to make sure this never happens again.

And I told them we will do everything in our power to ensure that. And they were open to the discussion. What can we do to do that?

And it comes down to a lot of things. It's about building that puzzle work together to make sure that our schools are safe, that mental health issues are in place, that someone like this, this monster, Nikolas Cruz, can never get his hands on a weapon whatsoever ever again.

And then if someone like this does want to cause harm, that they're not able to get into a school and cause this kind of mass tragedy on our children.

CAVUTO: I heard some of the students -- not all -- I was on the air for a good chunk of it earlier today -- but some of them were demanding getting some of these weapons themselves off of the street.

What do you think of that? How did you address that?

EAGLE: So, they talked about outright bans and what can we do.

And we had a very healthy, robust discussion about that. And we talked about, if we ban it, does this even solve the problem? If we ban assault rifles today -- and mind you, what is the definition of assault rifle? It might be something different to you, to me.

A bill that was discussed or was proposed to be brought up through tactics yesterday was an outright ban on all guns together. We have a Second Amendment in this country. We have a constitutional right to protect ourselves.

And we can look at that and have discussions to make sure that people that are mentally ill are not getting their hands on weapons. But we cannot do an outright strip of guns altogether. So, let's look at that and have that discussion.

We will do so. But even if we were ever to even discuss an outright ban, we will still have mass killings in this country. So, we need to look at ways to make sure that those mental health checks are in place, that people like this, this monster, are not getting their hands on weapons, and beyond that, make sure that our schools are secure and safe, because even if they can't get their hands on a gun, they can get their hands on a knife or a vehicle, whatever it is they want to do to inflict the most harm possible.

CAVUTO: Representative, a lot of them are demanding to know where Governor Rick Scott was and wanted to talk to him. Do you know if that ever happened?

EAGLE: I'm not sure whether Governor Scott was even in the building today. I know he's been having robust discussions with everybody.

I will tell you that, since this happened -- this happened while we were on the floor last week. Democrats, Republicans came together under Speaker Corcoran's leadership, the current speaker of the House. And we have been working on robust plan, which we look forward to introducing shortly.

These discussions have been ongoing.

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO: What will that robust plan be? What will that robust plan be?

EAGLE: I will look forward to releasing the details as -- as -- as they come out.

But it will look at certain weapons and -- and whether they should be -- whose hands they are getting into. It will looking at those mental health checks. And it will look into making sure that our schools are secure.

And there's a lot of details that go into all that. So, those discussions are ongoing. And they're happening in a bipartisan manner. They're happening with the Senate. They're happening with the governor.

And as soon as those ready to be released, which is very, very soon, the whole world will know about it. And I'm pleased that we will be able to get something done.

CAVUTO: All right, Representative, thank you very much.

END

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