Here's Why Gun Control Would Not Have Stopped Nashville Transgender Shooter
A disturbed woman entered a Christian school in Tennessee on Monday and murdered three children and three adults, police said.
Democrats, including President Joe Biden, predictably called for more gun control before the bodies of the six had even grown cold following the massacre at The Covenant School in Nashville.
Authorities say Audrey Hale shot her way into the locked building and carried out her atrocities from there. Some in the media also quickly blamed the guns.
The media circus and the response from many in Washington has been predictable.
Other than trying to spin the tragedy into a way to smear Christians and conservatives, the only real takeaway is the left’s response: The call for even more restrictions on firearms.
But gun control would not have prevented the shooting in Nashville for a number of reasons.
Banning “Assault Weapons”
Biden continues to call for a ban on so-called “assault weapons.” The term is floated around by gun control advocates and essentially describes a class of semi-automatic guns that fire one round per one trigger pull.
Images of guns used by Hale and shared by The New York Post showed two rifles, one presumably chambered for 5.56 ammo (or .223) and a carbine. (Due to the photo being grainy and the fact that not all details of the case have been released, it is unclear whether the carbine is chambered in 9mm or .45 ACP.) She was also carrying a pistol that is chambered in 9mm.
Biden’s constant calls for banning “assault weapons” are vague, so we’re left to assume he means the rifles. Magazines for such weapons can be bought with capacities ranging from a handful of rounds to a drum that can carry up to 100 rounds.
The image shared by the Post does not show a drum magazine or any of the higher-capacity magazines available on the market.
We know California and Colorado each have very strict laws on magazine capacity – 10 for California and 15 for Colorado.
Yet both states routinely experience mass shootings. California has the most restrictions on firearms of any state in the union, but that has not stopped citizens in the state from being targeted by mass shooters.
If the California standard had been applied to the entire country on Monday, Hale would have been able to get her hands on the weapons.
With what we know about firing capacity, we can eliminate that as a contributing factor to the shooting.
Red Flag Laws
Numerous advocates for more gun control consistently cite so-called “red flag” laws that designate police officers and the courts as guardians for people who are disturbed once a friend, relative or someone else expresses that person might be dangerous.
John Drake, the chief of the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department, told reporters Hale legally purchased seven firearms in total from different local gun stores, The New York Post reported.
Hale was also reportedly dealing with an “emotional disorder,” her family had stated.
“There’s not a law for that but had if it been reported that she was suicidal or that she was going to kill someone and had it been made known to us, then we would’ve tried to, to get those weapons,” Drake said.
Tennessee does not have a red flag law, but the red flags were reportedly there. Drake said no one in the department was aware of them in regard to Hale.
“But as it stands, we had absolutely no idea, actually who this person was, if she even existed,” he said.
Hale was a walking red flag, and her family was reportedly aware she had bought at least one gun in the past. She had reportedly said she sold it and was taken at her word.
It appears that even if a red flag law had been in effect in Tennessee, Hale would have evaded it.
Mental Illness
Part of why Hale was able to purchase her guns can arguably be blamed on the American Psychiatric Association, which began telling people like Hale, who identified as transgender, that they were not suffering from a mental illness beginning a decade ago.
The association updated its manual of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders to remove the term “Gender Identity Disorder.”
That meant imbalanced individuals were suddenly told they were not walking around suffering from a sickness. They were then not lying on background checks for firearms purchases when they answered the following question on ATF Form 4473:
“Have you ever been adjudicated as a mental defective OR have you ever been committed to a mental institution?”
Bringing Firearms To Schools In Tennessee Is Already Illegal
As with other states that embrace the Second Amendment, there are certain limitations.
Most of these states have laws that make it illegal for a person without the proper credentials to carry a gun into a bar, a sports venue, any government building and, especially, a school.
The law in Tennessee clearly states bringing a gun into a school is against is an illegal act.
Essentially, it appears the suspect was a mentally ill person who carried guns into a place where it was already illegal. She had also been told by modern psychiatry it was normal to believe she could become a man.
The firearms were seemingly purchased by a suspect under the mistaken belief that doubting one’s own identity does not classify them as being defective.
Rather than get her the help this person obviously needed, she might have mistakenly believed she was being marginalized by society — and not simply sick.
She checked “no” on box F on the ATF Form 4473.
As we have seen, a lot of carnage can be inflicted during a mass shooting even with a handgun, which Hale was carrying in addition to the other firearms.
In 2007, a man killed 32 people at Virginia Tech with two handguns, and one of them was chambered in .22 LR.
So Biden’s “assault weapons” ban talk is moot here, as many of what are classified as mass shootings are actually carried out with handguns.
Short of an attempt to ban all firearms in the country, existing and even most proposed gun control measures would not have prevented Monday’s tragedy in Nashville.
Truth and Accuracy
We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.
Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. Advertise Today.
