WASHINGTON (AP) - In the year since House Majority Whip Steve Scalise and others were shot at a congressional baseball practice, mass shootings have occurred at a Texas church, a Las Vegas music festival and high schools in Parkland, Florida, and Santa Fe, Texas.
Ohio Rep. Brad Wenstrup, a doctor who helped save Scalise's life last June, has watched those attacks unfold with the acute sensitivity of a mass shooting survivor. Each shooting is jarring, says Wenstrup - calling the Parkland shooting in particular sickening - but his views on gun control have not changed.
"If not for a gun - two guns really - being used on our side" by two Capitol Police officers at the GOP practice, "you might have seen 20 dead people," Wenstrup says. "That tells you where I'm coming from."
FILE - In this March 6, 2018 file photo, House Republican Whip Steve Scalise speaks at the 2018 American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) policy conference in Washington. Scalise, the Louisiana Republican who was shot and nearly killed during a Congressional baseball practice, apparently has a memoir coming this fall. The 304-page book is called "Back in the Game," according to listings on Amazon.com and the web site for the publisher Center Street. The release date is Nov. 13. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)
That sentiment is widespread among Republicans, who say the attack has only strengthened their commitment to protecting gun rights.
Scalise, of Louisiana, suffered life-threatening injuries in the June 2017 shooting but returned to work last fall. He said the shooting "deepened my appreciation for the Second Amendment because it was people with guns who saved my life and every
