Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.) criticized Hillary Clinton for her recent comments on criminal justice reform in light of the Sunday night shooting at a Texas event holding a contest to draw the Prophet Mohammed.

"When people like Hillary Clinton say that police should not have weapons of war, the fact is, we are at war; we are at war with Islamist terrorism, and we have to have all weapons and all resources available," he said Monday morning on Fox News's "Fox and Friends."

ADVERTISEMENT

King added that he and others have been warning for years about the prevalence of radicalized people living in the United States and renewed his call for "constant surveillance" by law enforcement to root out any plots.

The two shooters at the Texas event were killed by officers and one school security officer was released from the hospital after he was shot in the ankle. A senior FBI official told ABC News that one of the shooters was a previous subject of a terror investigation.

While the event asked participants to draw Mohammed, a practice many Muslims find offensive, King said that questions about whether the event provoked the reaction are unfounded.

"We shouldn't even be having a debate about whether that exhibition was provocative. Being in America means that you can be provocative," he said.

"This is the First Amendment. We cannot sacrifice our Constitution to Islamists or politically correct commentators."