Earlier this month, Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., appeared on “The Tom Roten Show” to criticize the House leadership’s handling of an appropriations bill which ended up not receiving a vote because of an amendment to remove the Confederate flag from federal grounds.

The House GOP tried to block a Democratic amendment to a bill on funding for the Department of Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency that would have banned the “Confederate battle flag’s display at federal parks and cemeteries administered by the National Park Service, as well as the sale of items displaying it,” throwing the body into chaos and delaying a vote on the bill.

“We’re having this debate because of the unfortunate circumstance that happened in South Carolina and my hearts go out to those people,” Massie said. “But I will say this: I am glad they are blaming a flag and not a gun this time because usually they are blaming the gun. They look for everything that could be wrong except for the real reason here and they go after it.”

The congressman said the Mother Emanuel AME Church could have prevented the shooting but didn’t: “This particular church disallowed any guns coming into the church, another gun-free zone, which makes people less safe. I think that’s why this time they wanted to have the debate on a flag instead of a gun because they realize that a gun would have been the only way to stop this.”

“I talked about these before, I call these weapons of mass distraction,” he continued. “When something this small gets blown up to this level and consumes all the news cycles and all of our time on the floor of the House of Representatives, watch out because they are doing something else in the other hand that you can’t see.”