A Republican congressman has shocked with his dismissive view of gun reform, just a day after three young children and three adults were slain at a school in his home state.
“It’s a horrible, horrible situation,” Tennessee Republican Tim Burchett said on Tuesday (US time).
“And we’re not gonna fix it. Criminals are gonna be criminals.
“My daddy fought in the Second World War, fought in the Pacific, fought the Japanese, and he told me … ‘Buddy, if somebody wants to take you out and doesn’t mind losing their life, there’s not a whole heck of a lot you can do about it’.”
Mr Burchett also said he didn’t “any real role” for Congress in dealing with gun violence in the US, other than to “mess things up.”
“I don’t think you’re gonna stop the gun violence,” he said.
“I think you gotta change people’s hearts.”
Mr Burchett’s statement came as the White House ratcheted up pressure on Republicans in Congress over a lack of action, urging them to address rampant gun violence while appealing to voters fed up with America’s epidemic of mass shootings.
Police have also released more details about Monday’s shooting at the Christian grade in Nashville – saying the 28-year-old former student who killed three nine-year-olds and three adults was under a doctor’s care for an “emotional disorder” and had amassed a collection of guns.
Monday’s violence marked the 90th school shooting – defined as any incident in which a gun is discharged on school property – in the US this year, according to the K-12 School Shooting Database.
Despite Mr Burchett shrugging off Congress’ ability to act, President Joe Biden focused his anger on Republicans. He urged them to show courage and warned they would have to answer to families who had lost loved ones.
“The majority of the American people think having assault weapons is bizarre, it’s a crazy idea. They’re against that,” Mr Biden said on Tuesday.
“I can’t do anything except plead with Congress to act reasonably.”
As he called for a ban on assault weapons, Mr Biden said he was often asked why he kept urging reforms that Republicans repeatedly rejected.
“Because I want you to know who isn’t doing it, who isn’t helping. Put pressure on them,” he said.
He said there was “a moral price to pay for inaction”.
Shooter had ‘collection of guns
Elsewhere, new details about assailant Audrey Elizabeth Hale, 28, emerged hours after police released harrowing video showing officers storming the Covenant School in the midst of Monday’s rampage and conducting a room-to-room search before confronting and fatally shooting Hale.
Authorities were still trying to pin down a motive as detectives pored over various writings and other evidence left by Hale.
Hale was armed with two assault-style weapons and a handgun in the latest in a string of US mass shootings that have turned schools into killing zones and added fuel to a national debate on gun rights and regulations.
The three weapons used on Monday were among seven firearms that Hale had legally purchased in recent years from five Nashville-area stores, Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake said.
Hale’s parents did not know that Hale possessed multiple firearms, mistakenly believing that Hale had owned just one gun, then sold it, Chief Drake said. The chief said the mother and father felt Hale should not own weapons due to mental health concerns.
The mother, on seeing Hale leave home with a red bag on Monday, had questioned what was in it, the chief said. Hale “was under care, a doctor’s care, for an emotional disorder”, he said.
Under Tennessee law, mental illness is not grounds for police to confiscate weapons, unless a person is deemed mentally incompetent by a court, “judicially committed” to a mental institution,” or placed under a conservatorship “by reason of mental defect”.
Tennessee prohibits selling guns to persons found by a court or other legal authority to pose a danger to themselves or others, or lack the capacity to conduct their own affairs due to mental illness. Merely being under a doctor’s care would not, in itself, meet that threshold.
Hale left behind a detailed map of the school showing entry points as well as what Chief Drake described as a “manifesto” indicating that Hale may have planned further shootings at other locations.
On Monday, Chief Drake said Hale identified as transgender, and said investigators believe the suspect harboured “some resentment for having to go to” the Covenant School as a child.
The shooting came weeks after Tennessee’s legislature thrust the state to the forefront of a political furore over LGBTQI rights by voting to ban gender-affirming medical treatments for transgender children and to restrict drag performances.
The suspect’s LinkedIn page, listing recent jobs in graphic design and grocery delivery, showed Hale preferred male pronouns.
The six minutes of video footage released on Monday, edited together from the body-worn cameras of two responding officers, offered a glimpse of the rampage as it unfolded. The video opens with an officer retrieving a rifle from his boot as a staff member tells him the school is locked down but two children are unaccounted for.
“Let’s go! I need three!” the officer yells as he enters the building, where alarms can be heard ringing.
The video shows officers clearing one room after another before heading upstairs, where one says, “We’ve got one down.”
The two officers each fired several rounds at the suspect. The video shows the assailant still moving on the floor as another officer repeatedly yells, “Get your hands away from the gun!”.
According to a police timeline, only 14 minutes elapsed from the first reports of a shooting to Hale being shot dead.
-with AAP
