Republican Honestly States GOP Plan for School Shootings: ‘We’re Not Going to Fix It’

The Republican Party refuses to support meaningful gun control measures, which means they’re forced to trot out what seem like increasingly ridiculous solutions to the nation’s epidemic of school shootings. They’ve suggested everything from bulletproof backpacks to turning educational institutions into heavily armed compounds. Rick Scott floated the death penalty as a deterrent on Monday, despite that school shooters — reportedly including the one who killed six people at the Covenant School in Nashville — are often prepared to die at the scene.

The reality is that Republicans are willing to live with school shootings so long as Americans are able to own high-powered semi-automatic killing machines. And if they have to pick between retaining that privilege and sparing children from violent death, they’ll pick the former. Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) acknowledged this reality on Monday.

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“We’re not going to fix it,” he told reporters.

Burchett has opposed restrictions on gun ownership in the past. He touts on his website that he “sponsored legislation to expand gun rights,” and that he is a lifetime NRA member. He’s previously called for improvements to mental health care and security at schools as ways to potentially stem school shootings, but he seems to have realized now that this isn’t going to help.

“I don’t see any real role that we could do other than mess things up,” he added on Monday when asked what role Congress might be able to play. He then prescribed a “revival” of Christianity in America.

Burchett’s acknowledgement that there’s nothing Congress can do to stop mass shooters is somehow refreshing when stacked up against the usual tide of thoughts and prayers followed by hare-brained solutions intended merely to create the impression that “something” (other than sensible guns laws) can be done to address mass shootings. The one measure completely off the table for Republicans is preventing, or even inhibiting, Americans from having access to rifles designed to fatally tear apart a large number of human bodies in a short amount of time. It’s non-negotiable for them, and until they’re out of power, Burchett is right: America’s children will continue to die.

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