Democratic Sen. Mark Warner (Va.) on Sunday said that "more should have been done" to combat gun violence when Democrats controlled Congress in previous years.
Warner made the comment on CNN's "State of the Union," where he discussed Friday's school shooting in Santa Fe, Texas that left 10 people dead and another 10 wounded.
"I'm old enough to remember when Democrats controlled the House and the Senate and the White House, and these shootings did not just start in the Trump administration," host Jake Tapper said to Warner. "They have been going on for decades. Why didn't Democrats do anything about gun violence then?"
Warner responded that the mass shooting"epidemic" has gotten worse over the last 10 years and that "more should have been done" in the 1980s and 1990s, when Democrats controlled Congress, to address gun violence. He did not specifically mention the Obama administration, the first two years of which Democrats controlled both houses of Congress.
"But the fact is, Jake, it's now 2018," Warner continued, pleading for Republicans in Congress to let their gun positions "evolve."
"There are ways that we can put reasonable restraints without dramatically interfering with people's Second Amendment rights," Warner said.
After the mass shooting that killed 17 students and teachers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida back in February, Warner signaled that it was time to have a "legitimate" debate about assault weapons.
"I think it's time for us to have a legitimate debate about restrictions on gun magazines and assault weapons," he said. "You get into definitions, but the basic notion of these weaponized, militarized weapons need to be off our streets. And even the Trump administration took some small step this weekend on bump stocks. So I think it's time. And I hope these kids continue to press."
Warner has previously voted against bans of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.