Three children and three adults were killed late Monday morning at the Covenant School shooting in Nashville, Tennessee. The shooting began around 10:13am CT, when authorities were alerted to shots fired inside the building, and concluded at 10:27am, at which point the shooter, an unnamed 28-year-old woman, was shot and killed. By 12:52pm, U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) took to Twitter to advocate for the presence of more guns on school campuses, and laid the blame for the mass shooting at the feet of President Joe Biden.
Sparing what can only be described as half a breath for the family, friends, and colleagues of the victims, Greene revealed in her lengthy Twitter rant that her main concern is not the safety of kids, but the safety of guns. Greene says “Good guys with guns” are the solution — despite the May 2022 shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, suggesting this is a far from reliably workable scenario — and that Joe Biden, on the other hand, is the problem.
“My prayers are with the victims and families at the Covenant School in Nashville,” she said in the first throwaway sentence of her post. “Another absolutely horrific needless tragedy.”
“Thank God for good guys with guns and thank God a good guy with a gun killed the evil mentally deranged shooter today.
“Joe Biden’s gun free school zones have endangered children at schools leaving them as innocent targets of sick horrible disturbed people ever since he worked as a Senator to pass this foolish law.
“What a fool. What a failure.
“Gun grabbers like Joe Biden and Democrats should give up their Secret Service protection and put themselves on the same level as our unprotected innocent precious children at school.
“School shootings should NEVER happen and will end immediately when our nations children are defended the same way Joe Biden is by good guys with guns!!!”
Among the glaring issues with Greene’s tweet lies a heavy-handed dose of hypocrisy. Were Trump currently in office, there is no scenario in which she would advocate for him to relinquish his secret service. Moreover, the notion that American preschools, elementary, and middle schools, whose ages range from three years old to 14 years old, should have to carry loaded weapons in order to safely learn in their classrooms, walk their halls, and play on their playgrounds is an example of just how far we’ve waded into the deep end.
The Covenant School shooter was armed with “at least” two assault rifles and a handgun, according to CBS news. Greene has been vocal about her support of AR-15 assault rifles, whereas Biden once again called on Congress in his public address this morning to pass his assault weapons ban, a plea he also made during his State of the Union address in February.
“We have to do more to stop gun violence; it’s ripping our communities apart — ripping the soul of this nation. And we have to do more to protect our schools, so they aren’t turned into prisons. The shooter in this situation reported had two assault weapons and a pistol. It’s an AK-47.
So I call on Congress again to pass my assault weapons ban. It’s about time that we begin to make some more progress, but there’s more to learn.”
Neither the names of the victims, or of the 28-year-old female shooter, who is believed to have once attended Covenant School, have been released at time of this writing.