'There’s something wrong with you': Texas Republican blasts right-wing opposition to sensible gun control

Texas State Representative Frederick Frazier (R-61st District) joined a small but growing group of GOP lawmakers demanding reforms to firearm laws following Saturday's mass shooting at the Allen Premium Outlets, which left nine people including the gunman dead and seven others wounded.

On Monday, The Texas Tribunereported that the Texas House Select Committee on Community Safety advanced a measure — House Bill 2744 – that would "prohibit selling, renting, leasing or giving a semi-automatic rifle with a caliber greater than .22 that is capable of accepting a detachable magazine to a person younger than 21 years old. Parents and relatives of children killed in the Uvalde shooting, as well as King, have said the shooting may have been thwarted had the bill been law last year. A recent University of Texas at Austin survey found a sizable majority of Texas voters — including Republicans — support raising the minimum age to buy all guns from 18 to 21."

Two Republican State Representatives — Sam Harless (126th District) and Justin Holland (33rd District) — voted in favor of the legislation.

READ MORE: Former Texas cop: Mass shootings 'going to keep happening' until 'automatic rifles' are 'off the streets'

Frazier explained his position with WFAA correspondent Teresa Woodard on Tuesday.

"You saw two Republicans come out yesterday and you look on their social media and they're just completely attacked and you knew they're doing it from their heart. They're not doing it cuz they hate guns. I mean, we're gun wearers. We're gun we're police officers. We're in the communities. Why would we go want to take guns away from citizens to protect themselves?" Frazier retorted.

"We want citizens to be armed. We want citizens to protect themselves. But we also don't want maniacs that have pure evil in their heart to go out there and kill our families and everyone else's family," Frazier continued. "So that's a hard, the hard look we have to look at and that and that something right there is gotta be pulled."

Frazier also blasted those in power who refuse to protect the public.

READ MORE: Greg Abbott implicates 'the government' in Saturday’s mass shooting

"If you don't feel that, then there's something wrong with you right now," Frazier said. "If you saw those videos and you saw those bodies piled up and you saw what happened there, and that doesn't make you think we've got something wrong, then you have something wrong. And that's how all – most of us feel."

"So you're willing to consider some measures?" Woodard asked.

"I absolutely am," Frazier confirmed. "And we have to sit down and have these conversations."

According to Woodard, Frazier then remarked on the prevalence of AR-15 usage in massacres.

"That's something we have to take a hard look at and that hard look needs to come from the Second Amendment grassroots. It has to come from the N[ational] R[ifle] A[ssociation]. That sitdown has to happen," Frazier said.

Frazier further added that "there's somewhere in the middle" where compromise can be found.

"I'm a Republican through and true," he stressed. "But this needs to be where we come together and figure out how to fix this."

Watch below or at this link.

READ MORE: 'Thoughts and prayers are not enough': President Joe Biden hits Republicans over inaction on gun violence