#7: Nashville Shooting

It has become common occurrence in this country to always be mourning and sending our thoughts and prayers for a mass shooting of some sort. As gun control and ownership becomes a more polarized and political issue in America, we often find that certain groups will attempt to capitalize off of certain aspects of the shooting. 

On March 27th, 6 people, including 3 children, were murdered by a gunman who entered Covenant School and Church in Nashville, TN. The perpetrator was a transgender man named Aiden Hale. Despite his manifestos and agendas not fitting a specific social or political agenda, right-wing media took no time to wait on capitalizing on the shooters gender identity. Marjorie Taylor Greene described the event as 'trans terrorism', newly fired Fox anchor Tucker Carlson went on an anti-trans rant spewing word after word of dangerous rhetoric (link). He stated that trans people and being transgender is an enemy of Christianity, and that lack of control hadn't let this event happen, but rather the 'trans and gay agenda' allowed this shooting to take place.

Despite having much to say about the perpetrator of the shooter, MTG has little to say about actually stopping the gun violence epidemic in our country. In fact, she does not believe in gun control of any sorts. Her official stance on her campaign site states that she is committed to EXPANDING the second amendment (link). 

Since 1990, there have been over 750 incidents of school shootings in America (link). Out of those 750 incidents, over 95% of perpetrators have been men. 4 of them have been transgender or nonbinary, that means that less than 1% of all shootings in this country were committed by transgender suspects. In fact, transgender people are far more likely to fall victim to shootings than people of other genders. 

Although the science is clear, the right will continue to push the idea of an LGBTQ agenda instead of addressing the real issues surrounding gun culture and control in America.