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September 22, 2020
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Tennessee governor slammed after 'praying' for Nashville community without mentioning mass shooting
March 27, 2023
Governor Bill Lee quickly drew tremendous outrage in the wake of a school mass shooting where six people including three young children were shot to death. Social media users criticized the Tennessee Republican, who had signed a permit-less gun carry law, for declaring he was “praying for the school, congregation & Nashville community,” without posting any mention of the mass shooting.
Tweeting he was “closely monitoring the tragic situation at Covenant,” Gov. Lee said, “As we continue to respond, please join us in praying for the school, congregation & Nashville community.”
There was no mention of any loss of life, and, as Moms Demand Action founder Shannon Watts passionately noted, the “situation” was a mass shooting.
“If thoughts and prayers alone worked to stop gun violence, there wouldn’t have been a shooting at a Christian elementary school. It’s your actions – including weakening the state’s gun laws – that’s killing kids in Tennessee,” Watts also tweeted. “SHAME ON YOU.”
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Gov. Lee signed a permit-less carry bill into law in 2021, at a Beretta gun manufacturing plant.
According to the CDC, as of 2020 – one year before the permit-less carry bill was signed into law – Tennessee ranked tenth in the nation in per-capita firearm mortality.
Meanwhile, others took notice of the gun culture Gov. Lee has fostered in “The Volunteer State.”
MSNBC analyst and Bulwark writer Tim Miller commented, “Tennessee governor Bill Lee issued a statement recently about how the drag ban in Tennessee ‘protects children.’ If only he would have instead focused on laws that might have prevented the mass murder of children in his state today.”
Historian Kevin Kruse pointed to an article from last year, after the Uvalde, Texas school shooting, titled: “Rep. Clemmons Seeks Renewed Gun Laws, Gov. Lee Requests Prayer.”
“You chose prayer over gun reforms last year after the Uvalde massacre,” Kruse wrote. “And now here we are.”
The progressive website Tennessee Holler pointed out that Gov. Lee, along with GOP lawmakers, “just appointed Jordan Mollenhour to the [state] board of education— whose company was sued for selling ammo to an underage mass killer (SANTA FE) and sold ammo to at least one more (AURORA) He has ZERO education experience.”
Let’s Give a Damn founder Nick Laparra tweeted, “We are 86 days into 2023. So far, 9859 people have died by gun violence and there have been 128 mass shootings. Meanwhile, @GovBillLee spends his days being outraged over drag queens and CRT and book bans. This is Bill Lee’s and the GOP’s fault.”
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Here's what made Republicans in Congress waver on blocking gun laws last year: expert
March 27, 2023
Following the massacre at a private school in Nashville, Tennessee on Monday that killed six people, some are thinking back to last year's slaughter at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, and how — uncharacteristically — that shooting actually led to the first federal legislation on guns in 30 years, with a bipartisan bill passing that boosted funding for gun trafficking enforcement, expanded background checks for younger gun buyers, and prevents unmarried domestic partners accused of abuse from obtaining guns, among several other reforms.
Dave Cullen, author of "Parkland," argued on MSNBC that this is no accident — there was a shift in pressure that forced Republicans to concede some gun reforms were needed.
"You know, the public has risen to moment," said anchor Nicolle Wallace. "85 percent of the public supports a policy that has no chance of passing. 90 percent of the public supports bans on stocks, 95 percent on universal background checks, universal. Gun owners support storage. I think Shannon [Watts] and Gabby [Giffords], they've done their work and persuaded the public to do something. What is entrenched is the political lock that the NRA has on the Republican Party and Republicans, for better or worse, still win elections. How do you solve for that?"
"Totally," said Cullen. "We saw the strategy that will work last summer when we peeled off like — they needed like eight senators, Republican senators, and got 18 or something like that, including Mitch McConnell. We heard from Shelley Moore Capito in West Virginia and Joni Ernst [in Iowa], who ran that famous gun ad. The last people in the world — people from Texas! Who switched because they said the calls coming to their office were six-to-one or ten-to-one, Republicans in gun states were telling them, you have to do something, you have to do this. When Republicans' own voters are starting to turn on them, which is finally happening, that's, I think, the inflection point. So we got one. But that seemed impossible a year or two ago."
IN OTHER NEWS: Nashville school shooter identified as Audrey Hale
"The research I did on the polling before that, the main pollster for both Moms Demand Action and Giffords told me before that, she picked up something in the polling last previous year or two, was that people were starting to see Congress as the bad guys," said Cullen. "People ... felt like it's the NRA stopping it, the NRA is the bad guy doing this. They started feeling like, well the NRA isn't in Congress. It's also our people in Congress. That's a recent change, and that's why somebody like Shelley Moore Capito ... [who] never would have voted for something like this, did because she came back and said, wow, the political winds have shifted. Mitch McConnell went to his caucus after they did a poll to show support for it and said, even among gun owners, it's overwhelming. He warned them, we're going to lose the suburbs if we don't start doing something on guns, and then personally voted for it. That was unthinkable."
"So that's the road to victory, is continuing to peel off those people," added Cullen. "And frankly, we need Republican voters, we need conservative voters in gun states, they are the key to this, to put the most pressure on their senators and congresspeople."
Watch video below or at this link.
Dave Cullen explains how Republicans were forced to act on guns in 2022 www.youtube.com
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'Menacing wickedness': Marjorie Taylor Greene blasted for blocking ATF gun store inspection
March 27, 2023
On June 22nd, 2021, then-freshman United States Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) filed House Resolution 3960 to abolish the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, alleging that the agency was in cahoots with President Joe Biden to strip American citizens of their right to bear arms.
"The ATF's ongoing, unconstutional [sic] attacks on the Second Amendment must end," Greene's office stated of the Brian A. Terry Memorial Eliminate the ATF Act, which went nowhere because Democrats controlled both chambers of Congress. The typo still appears on Greene's website.
Like most right-wing lawmakers, Greene is steadfastly opposed to any form of sensible gun control, even as thousands of Americans are killed by bullets every year. But Monday's mass shooting at the private Christian Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee that claimed the lives of at least six people marked an escalation in Greene's rhetoric and actions aimed at thwarting efforts to save lives.
At around the same time that Greene baselessly blamed Biden for the slaughter, Greene and other members of their state's Capitol Hill delegation were obstructing a routine ATF inspection of a weapons retailer in Smyrna, Georgia.
Footage of the confrontation was posted to Twitter along with a screenshot of Greene boastfully writing that the ATF abandoned its assignment "after we questioned their motives."
In the video, Greene flexed her power.
"We're members of Congress," she said, adding that "I serve on the Oversight Committee."
Greene also complained to the ATF officer that the "government has been weaponized," that "people feel like their gun rights are threatened," and that "gun dealers feel like their businesses are threatened."
Given the day's events, social media users tore into Greene with exasperated disgust.
Jayme Ruimveld: "Is this today? Is she running her mouth about guns while children have been murdered by guns at their preschool? Not a shred of decency. Not an ounce of respect or concern for the grieving families. Absolutely soulless."
Kat: "And they're worried about gun vendors, feeling threatened!"
Judy Miron: "There are 7 more people dead, 3 of them children today in Nashville.. and she complains about ATF inspections!! Time to get rid of her. Vote her out!!"
Michelle: "Marge is nothing but a heartless hateful little troll."
Leon: "Meanwhile children died today at a Christian School, but hey as long as your precious 2nd Amendment that was written for Flintlock rifles is protected right."
Cathy Coleman: "There is something very wrong with MTG and the Republican members of Congress who hover around her & follow her lead. Something beyond dirty politics or unbridled ambition - there is a menacing wickedness and cruelty about them all."
ZoëbethC-MeidasMighty: "Just as another shooter shows up in Tennessee to kill elementary school kids. They got their priorities straight. I bet after lunch it's more bills to ban Drag Shows on a federal level."
Marcus Flowers: "As America grieves over yet another school shooting, this time in Nashville, Marjorie Taylor Greene is trying to prevent the ATF from doing their job. Common Sense Gun Legislation is necessary. We must do something to protect our children."
Seth Abramson: "Marjorie Taylor Greene is all about 'good guys with guns' until a violent insurrectionist smashes the window of the Speaker's Lobby inside a closed-to-the-public United States Capitol so a military veteran can leap into the breach and kidnap or kill a sitting member of Congress."
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