Former Republican congressman David Jolly said voters who value gun control above all else will need to "flip the House" to get it done because "Republicans are not going to do a single thing" in the aftermath of the mass murder in Florida.
"The reality after each shooting, if we are brutally honest, is that Republicans are not going to do a single thing," Jolly said Thursday on CNN's "New Day" morning program.
"So if you're an American and this is the center of our political ideology, gun issues, then you need the Democratic party to be in charge and to address reasonable and responsible gun control," Jolly said.
The former Florida congressman said the same thing Wednesday night, also on CNN, with Don Lemon in the aftermath of a shooter killing 17 at a high school in Parkland, Florida.
"The idea of gun policy in the Republican party is to try and get a speaking slot at the NRA and prove to that constituency that you're further right than generations of past Republicans have been on guns," Jolly said.
Jolly echoed what President Barack Obama said in 2015 after a mass shooting at an Oregon university. Gun control has to be a "single issue" with voters, even if that means voting for someone you don't otherwise favor, Obama said then.
"So if this is the issue that defines your ideology as a voter, there are two things that I would suggest tonight," Jolly told CNN's Lemon. "First, flip the House. Flip the House. Republicans are not going to do a single thing after this shooting we saw today.
"But I would also offer to Democrats - work for incremental wins," said Jolly, suggesting that Democrats bypass Republicans to work with law enforcement on universal background checks and greater restrictions on assault rifles.
"Democrats should go to the law enforcement community and say, 'We're gonna leave the Republicans behind. Let's work on this together right now and get the will of the American people enacted in the United States Congress."
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