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Brett Kavanaugh refuses to shake hand of Parkland victim’s father

The White House claims security ‘intervened.’

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David Gilmour

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Judge Brett Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, refused to shake the hand of the father of a victim of the Parkland school shooting as he left for a lunch break during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.

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Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter Jaime was killed in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School mass shooting in Florida back in February, gave an account of the televised exchange via Twitter.

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In footage that has emerged of the incident, Guttenberg can be seen approaching Kavanagh as he makes his way out of the room. The father taps Kavanagh on the shoulder and reaches out his hand. Kavanagh pauses, looks at the man directly in the face, before turning his back and walking away.

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White House deputy press secretary Raj Shah quickly responded to Guttenberg’s tweet by claiming that security “intervened” before Kavanagh could engage. 

https://twitter.com/RajShah45/status/1037046732310360064?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

By that time, however, Americans were judging for themselves as the clip and images went viral. Gun control activists, in particular, were outraged by the incident.

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Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg, a figurehead of the movement for gun reform laws in the wake of the killing spree, tweeted that it was a picture “worth thousands of lives” before urging his followers to call lawmakers immediately in a bid to halt the confirmation.

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“The NRA has spent millions of dollars to appoint Kavanaugh,” Hogg writes. “It’s going to take 1000s of phone calls to stop this man.”

The National Rifle Association enthusiastically threw its support behind the conservative nominee, whose record on gun control issues and the Second Amendment is defined by a 2011 dissent in Heller v. District of Columbia, where he argued that Washington, D.C.’s ban on semi-automatic rifles was unconstitutional.

 
The Daily Dot