Marco Rubio: School shooters need to be looked at as a whole, not as isolated cases

By Sally Persons - The Washington Times - Thursday, February 15, 2018

Sen. Marco Rubio said Thursday that incidents like the school shooter in Florida need to be looked at “in totality” and not just as the case of one disturbed person.

“You have to look at the totality. It’s not just the guy that you’re getting calls about doing weird things. It’s a guy that’s putting all these things up on social media. It’s a guy that’s had problems and threatening people in school,” Mr. Rubio, Florida Republican, said on Fox News.

“We look at these things in an isolated way and not in a totality,” he said.

Gun violence came back into the forefront of the political conversation on Wednesday after a gunman opened fire on his former high school in Parkland, Florida. Seventeen people have been confirmed dead in that shooting so far, with another 15 still in the hospital.

The shooting suspect, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, has been charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder.

The suspect apparently had voiced his passion for weapons and violence on social media and was the type of teen other children as school called a “loner.” He had recently lost his mother to pneumonia and was living with family friends when the shooting occurred.