Ex-Rep Rodney Davis says still carries gun after congressional baseball shooting eight years ago

Former Illinois GOP Rep. Rodney Davis says he has carried a gun since the 2017 congressional baseball shooting, eight years before a Minnesota state lawmaker was fatally shot Saturday in a politically targeted attack. 

Davis was among the congressional Republicans on the baseball practice field when the 2017 shootings occurred.

He said in an interview with Politico published Thursday that the killing of the lawmaker last week "brings back the memories of that day and watching my friends and wondering whether or not they were going to survive their shots."

"But at the same time, you begin to understand that there are just some bad people out there that are triggered for whatever reason, that they’re going to save the world by killing others," Davis continued. "And I don’t get it. Never got it that day, never got it afterward, and I still don’t understand it today in Minnesota."

He also said the June 14, 2017, incident, in which left-wing activist James T. Hodgkinson shot four people including then-House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, "changed me personally."

Even in private events, where I’m much more secure, I carry a gun where I am able to, in order to fire back if somebody decides to come and kill me and my friends again," Davis also told Politico.

"I’m much more aware of the security situation. I’m sitting here in London right now and working with the security officials that are on this trip that I’m a part of. And I always find myself walking at the end or watching our surroundings. I didn’t pay as much attention to that before June 14 of 2017, but I do now."