The unfortunate and tragic school shooting in Tennessee today has prompted outpourings of support, shock, and also helped to illustrate how much politicians in that state love guns. Horror author Stephen King recently pointed out that fact by highlighting an ongoing campaign donation to Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn.
King, who is not afraid to speak up about anything, retweeted a post from journalist Edward Hardy about the senator. He said she’s accepted more than $1 million from the National Rifle Association (NRA).
The original tweet was a response from Blackburn to the shooting itself where she said she was “heartbroken” over the incident and “ready to assist.” Then she pulls out the classic Republican do-nothing “join us in prayer.” Per the Brady Foundation, Blackburn is 13th on a list of senators who’ve received the most money from the NRA.
She received $1,306,130 in donations and she lives in a state with 1,273 gun deaths a year, one of the higher numbers among all the states. School shootings are a rampant problem in America, with most of them carried out with military style assault rifles.
Democrats are always trying to ban the guns, saying there’s no reason for them to be on the streets, but Republicans will not budge on the issue. In 2021, school shootings reached a 20-year-high with 93 shootings across the country, per CNN. There have been 376 school shootings since Columbine in 1999, not including this latest one.
David Hogg, founder of A March for our Lives and a survivor of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, also pointed out the ridiculousness of the issue.
Will anything change? It certainly doesn’t feel like it.