Republicans believe that the fact that the shooter was transgender is more significant than the fact that six people died in the Nashville school shooting.
The New Republic reported that a gunman opened fire at a private Christian primary school in Nashville, wounded several people in addition to murdering at least three children and three adults. Audrey Hale, a former Covenant School student, has been named by police as the attacker.
Police Chief John Drake told NBC News that authorities think Hale was transgender but are unsure whether this was a factor in the shooting.
R.T. VanOrden shields his daughters from the wind during a vigil for the victims of a deadly shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, Tuesday. (Photo by Austin Anthony via Reuters)
Nashville School Shooting: Republicans, Far-Right Members To ‘Regulate’ Trans People
The Independent reported that the Republican members of Congress and well-known far-right figures took advantage of the Nashville school shooting that caused the deaths of three nine-year-old children and three school personnel to advance legislation that discriminates against transgender individuals and opposes gender-affirming medical treatment.
Law enforcement has identified the alleged attacker in the Nashville school shooting as a transgender, a fact that GOP lawmakers and far-right figures with significant social media followings have used to discredit threats of violence against LGBT+ people and argue that trans people should be criminalized and regulated rather than the proliferation of powerful weapons.
LGBT+ campaigners claim that politicians and media figures have used the Nashville school shooting’s aftermath to portray trans people as mentally ill and transfer the responsibility to them, repeating myths and rhetoric that have accompanied a recent wave of legislation that targets gender-affirming healthcare.
Far-right representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has proposed federal legislation to restrict treatment for trans youngsters that affirms their gender, also said in the same The Independent report that everyone “can stop blaming firearms” now.
On March 28, her congressional account was momentarily disabled as a result of her erroneous claim that “antifa” and trans individuals were planning a terrorist attack.
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Number of Mass Shootings in US
Several mass shootings have occurred this year, and experts said in The Violence Project survey that males commit 98% of these attacks. Nonetheless, some far-right politicians and activists have exploited the massacre in Nashville to make unfounded claims that transgender and non-binary people are more likely to commit mass shootings, as Donald Trump Jr. said on Twitter.
According to The Violence Project, four of the 172 shooters identified in major shootings since 1996 were cisgender guys. According to data from the Anti-Defamation League, right-wing extremists were responsible for all homicides connected to extremism in 2022.
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