The official line from House Republicans on Monday's mass shooting at a private Christian elementary school in Nashville is to encourage prayer and making schools "safer," but "taking guns away is not the answer."
GOP Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the second-most powerful Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives, on Tuesday encouraged prayer, waiting for more facts, and looking into mental health option, despite his record of voting against them. Six people, including three nine-year olds and three adults, were shot to death after a shooter shot through the doors of Covenant Presbyterian Elementary School.
"The first thing in any kind of tragedy I do is I pray," Scalise told a reporter Tuesday when asked if there's anything Congress can do to reduce gun violence and deaths. "I pray for the victims. I pray for their families."
On Monday, U.S. Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) also encouraged prayer over action. “We’re not gonna fix it,” he declared point-blank, while calling for a Christian "revival."
Scalise was shot in 2017 in a rare act of left-wing gun violence by a man angry at then-President Donald Trump. He and House Republicans have repeatedly used that attack to target Democrats and their policies.
"I really get angry when I see people trying to politicize it for their own personal agenda," Scalise continued, referring to shootings, "especially when we don't even know the facts. There are facts coming out."
"It looks like the shooter originally went to another school that had real stronger, much stronger security and ultimately went to this school," Scalise said, which is false. According to a CNN report, the shooter had previously "scouted" a second location but had a detailed plan and maps of The Covenant School.
"Let's get the facts," Scalise insisted, suggesting no action should be taken before any investigations into this shooting are complete.
The Washington Post in a continually-updated report notes, "There were more school shootings in 2022 — 46 — than in any year since at least 1999."
It adds, "There have been 376 school shootings" since Columbine, in 1999, and, "More than 348,000 students have experienced gun violence at school since Columbine."
But Scalise urged Americans to "work to see if there's something that we can do to help secure schools."
And he insisted reducing the number of guns in America, currently believed to be over 400 million – more than the total population of the country – is "not the answer."
"We've talked about things that we can do, and it just seems like on the other side, all they want to do is take guns away from law abiding citizens, before they even know the facts. The first thing they talk about is taking guns away from law abiding citizens. And that's not the answer, by the way. So why don't we number one, keep those families in our prayers and see if there were things that were missed. Along the way, we've talked about the need to improve mental health in this country, and that's been a driver of a lot of these shootings as well."
But just last September, Scalise, along with all but one House Republican, voted against a bill that would "increase access to mental and behavioral health care."
He also skipped a vote one week earlier on the Mental Health Justice Act of 2022.
Watch Scalise's remarks in this clip, below or at this link.
