The United States' mental illness laws have not been updated in decades, House Speaker Paul Ryan said Thursday, but there is also a growing concern about ISIS inspiring citizens to commit violent attacks and he warned about a rush to judgment on the nation's latest mass shooting.
"I don't want to speculate," the new speaker told
MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program. "Already the biggest concern is how ISIS inspires citizens here to commit these events, and then we've got to make sure we are enforcing the guns, so the people who are already illegal can't get them."
At the same time, he warned about rushing to judgment to "do something," but "not actually solve anything."
But Ryan said he doesn't want to "predetermine" what gaps there are in the nation's laws that need filled, but "you also have to remember there are law-abiding citizens whose rights we don't want to trample upon."
For example, there are people who are saying not to allow a person on the national "no-fly" list to get a gun, but some people are put there by mistake, said Ryan. "And then we see gaping holes [in] mental health, we need to fix that."
Meanwhile, GOP candidates Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz have been attacking each other after Rubio criticized Cruz for his vote on the National Security Agency surveillance, and Ryan said he's not getting in the middle of their presidential battle.
"The way I look at this is, why do we have to trade one for the other?" said Ryan. "That's kind of ridiculous, isn't it? We are a free society. We don't want terrorists to make us take away our freedom from ourselves, but at the same time we need to make sure we have the tools to make ourselves safe."
Ryan is set to make his first major address as speaker on Wednesday, and part of it will include comments about what is needed to be done to deal with President Barack Obama.
"Yes, we need a new president," Ryan, who ran on the vice-presidential ticket against Obama in 2012, told the program. "We have an obligation to our fellow citizens and how we can do things different and let them choose. Be bold, have a plan, have an agenda and present it to this country."
Meanwhile, he has been pushing to unify the party, including on the issue with Syrian refugees, in which there were people who wanted to head in different directions and to push for bipartisan cooperation.
"Yesterday we passed the most comprehensive rewrite of our K-12 education laws since 2002 and probably the most impactful since 25 years," said Ryan. "Today we're going to be passing a five-year highway bill, five-year transportation infrastructure bill. We haven't done something like that in a decade and I expect a very big bipartisan vote."
And Ryan does not believe there will be a government shutdown when it comes time to the upcoming vote for the national spending bill, as "the Appropriations Committee is working day and night negotiating a government funding bill."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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