Rep. King: FBI Doesn't Have Manpower on the Ground

After the tragic mass shooting at an Orlando nightclub early Sunday morning, questions over the FBI’s effectiveness in thwarting potential terror attacks is being questioned.

Representative Peter King, a Republican from New York, said the government security and intelligence agency needs to provide local police departments information they have on potential terror subjects.

“You can’t expect the FBI to be carrying out long investigations on every name that comes before them,” King said. “That’s what you have local police for. The FBI can do their own investigation and then turn it over, give it to the local police, let them continue to monitor.”

King said the key is having local law enforcement officials on the ground to help with investigations.

“They’re the ones who have the detectives, the undercovers,” he said. “They have the sources and they can continue to monitor this to see if there’s any change in the person’s behavior… [the FBI] can handle the very big cases, but this is what you need the street cops for. This is what you need the special units for.”

This election season, a major topic up for debate on the campaign trail is gun control legislation. The congressman, who describes himself as a “Republican who believes in more gun background checks,” said stricter gun control legislation would not significantly improve the chances of stopping terror attacks on American soil.

“You can have all the gun legislation you want,” King said. “All it would do is maybe slightly, slightly slow down ISIS. This is not a gun issue, this is a terrorism issue and it’s an issue of Islamist terrorism.”