GOP lawmaker blames 'dang smartphones' at hearing on mass shootings
By David Edwards
© provided by RawStoryRep. Pat Fallon (R-TX) (House Oversight Committee/screen grab)
Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX) this week linked mass shootings to "the overuse" of "dang smartphones."
At a House Oversight Committee hearing on Wednesday, Fallon rejected the call for new gun regulations following the recent mass shooting at a school in Uvalde, Texas.
Guns have always been readily available in this country but mass shootings and particularly mass shootings of schools were non-existent or extremely rare until they became a grisly recent phenomenon," he told the committee.
"So what's changed in the last 50 years?" Fallon asked. "There's been a noticeable breakdown of the family, there's been an erosion of faith and there's been a seismic drop in social interaction in large measure due to the overuse of these dang smartphones and the proliferation of social media, which is probably better described as anti-social media."