Nikki Haley Says Focusing on Gun Control Is a ‘Lazy’ Approach to Gun Violence
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Republicans have responded to Monday’s shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville the same way they respond to most mass shootings: offering thoughts, prayers, and whatever linguistic gymnastics necessary to avoid taking action to address the epidemic of child slaughter.
Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) said it was “premature” to consider new gun legislation. Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) said it was too “emotional.” Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor now languishing toward the bottom of the polls for the the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, said on Tuesday that it is “lazy” to focus on guns in combating mass shootings.
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“To sit there and say that it’s just a gun issue is the lazy way out,” Haley said at a town hall event in New Hampshire, according to Fox News. “We need to acknowledge the whole issue. And the whole issue is [the shooter in Nashville] was struggling and there was nobody there to help her.”
Haley was careful to say that focusing exclusively on guns isn’t the way to go about it. So what does she have to say about regulating the tools of mass shootings as a way to prevent mass shootings?
Well, she was then asked whether she would considering supporting legislation on assault weapons were she to be elected president. “I don’t deal with hypotheticals,” she said, apparently unaware that the entire point of a presidential campaign is explaining to voters how you would handle various hypothetical situations if you were in the White House.
She is also apparently unaware that no one is saying mental health isn’t a contributing factor to mass shootings. It is, however, the exact kind of difficult-to-legislate-around problem Republicans can gesture toward when pressed about the overabundance of high-powered assault weapons, which would be far easier for Congress to address.
Haley said on Monday she is against gun control while arguing that kids having to walk through metal detectors at school wouldn’t be so bad. “It’s OK if there are metal detectors,” she said. “There are those guests coming in out, the kids see them in an airport, they see them wherever they go. Why don’t we do that to protect those kids?”
The Nashville shooter broke in through a side door to the Covenant School before killing six people, including three children.
The only Republican who has been honest about what can be done about school shootings outside of tightening gun restrictions is Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.). “We’re not going to fix it,” he told reporters before noting that it isn’t a problem for him because he homeschools his daughter.
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