ABC’s Brad Garrett: Even If FBI Had Done Everything Right, Nothing Could Have Stopped Fla. Shooter

RADDATZ: Let’s talk about what happened here. We had a 19 year old with an automatic — semi-automatic weapon, was able to buy it legally, had mental health disturbances, had all kinds of red flags. People were calling the school, people were calling the police. What should have happened? What could have happened if all the protocols were followed? If none of the red flags were missed, could this have been stopped?

THOMAS: Look, I don’t want to beat up on the FBI too much here because they are already crestfallen, as I said, about this situation. But the whole idea of see something say something is to create a situation where they can go knock on that door. And if you go and knock on that door after getting that information, you’re going to find out a couple things.

You’re going to find out that this young man has been receiving counseling, you’re going to find out that he — neighbors are concerned about him and then you’re going to find out he’s got an AR-15.

RADDATZ: But then what can you do about that, Brad Garrett?

GARRETT: Zero, actually. Because —

THOMAS: But in terms of getting counseling and perhaps having a conversation —

RADDATZ: And — and he had counseling. So that’s the point. What, in the end, even if all the protocols are followed, even if you knock on that door, could you do stop it?

GARRETT: Maybe nothing. And here’s the reason why, is that school shooters or mass shooters in general think about this for weeks, months, years. And they’ll just wait. You know, and they — some of them know they can step to a line and if they step over it, the police could come after them if not. So he said inappropriate things, he had a weapon legally. So what are you going to do?

Now, there — in some jurisdictions, there’s a things called, you know, emergency violence protection orders.

THOMAS: Right.

GARRETT: You can get one of those — I don’t know if Florida has them — where you can go and temporarily seize someone’s guns. A lot of states don’t like them because they think of the second amendment stuff. But we have to think more in an informal (ph) setting. We can’t think about we’re going to arrest somebody. We have to think about what can we do with them, what settings can we put them in to help them.

THOMAS: And Martha, to be clear, I’m not necessarily saying he should have been arrested in that moment. But what these law enforcement people tell me is that if you can get people to the appropriate psychiatric medical help, then you perhaps can mitigate whatever’s going on with them.

RADDATZ: OK. Thanks to both of you. Pierre, (ph) you’re going to be joining us later. Thanks, Brad.