'We Care Just as Much': A Republican Reflects on the Parkland Shooting
Texas Representative Joe Barton, a survivor of last summer’s mass shooting at a congressional baseball practice, talks about his reaction to the attack in Florida.
Joe Barton didn’t see the shooter until the end. For 10 minutes he lay face down behind the dugout, tasting the dirt, listening to the gunfire. Then, for several seconds, all would go quiet. “I thought it was over, but then it wasn’t,” Barton says. The shooter had two weapons, and he’d cease fire to reload or switch from his pistol to his semi-automatic rifle. In those silent seconds, Barton’s then 11-year-old son, Jack, would peek out from under the car where he was hiding. His father would frantically yell at him to get back down.
It was June 14, 2017, a steaming morning at the Alexandria park where Republican lawmakers had
