After yet another horrific school shooting, this time in Tennessee, the Nashville Police Department has released video — and very quickly, we might add — of the terror unleashed in the attack that killed six people, including three children.
This surveillance video shows the shooter arriving at The Covenant School, carrying what police called an assault-type rifle and wearing a tactical vest with another rifle visible.
There is also bodycam footage, and we must warn you: It is graphic.
But we’re showing it to you for three reasons:
- One, so that more of us can understand the abject terror unleashed in a school shooting.
- Two, to prove that there is no way a teacher alone can take down a shooter armed with a weapon of war, the way that trained police can do.
- And third, to show you how police are supposed to respond.
The footage further proves how the delayed, incompetent and, one might say, cowardly response in Uvalde, Texas — when officers waited more than an hour outside the classrooms where the gunman killed 21 people — was a complete disgrace.
We’re talking about an elementary school, where cubbies held tiny jackets and backpacks and lunchboxes.
No other country does this to their children, forcing little kids to live — and die — like this. It’s literally just us!
There are 120 guns for every 100 Americans, according to the Small Arms Survey.
That’s the highest rate of private gun ownership of any country in the world, including Yemen — a country in the throes of a nine-year civil war.
The Republican Party’s answer to this sickness will also make you sick.
When asked what he would do to protect young children, one Tennessee lawmaker simply noted that he home-schools his daughter, so his family’s good!
As for the rest of America? Well, what can you do?
That infuriating, dismissively cruel attitude is why another Tennessee lawmaker — a Democrat and also a father — took his Republican colleagues to task.
“My children are worth every damn assault rifle in this country,” Tennessee State Rep. Bo Mitchell said after 6 people were killed in the Nashville mass school shooting. “Don’t say that you’re pro-life and then vote to put more weapons on the street.” https://t.co/dDzbppPSK9 pic.twitter.com/7JyF9zpraA
— VICE News (@VICENews) March 28, 2023
#Tennessee State Rep. Bo Mitchell (@VoteBo) on #Nashville school shooting: "If more guns were the answer, Tennessee would be one of the safest places on the planet, but unfortunately we're one of the leaders in the nation in gun violence." #TheReidOut pic.twitter.com/BpSNHmgGv8
— The ReidOut (@thereidout) March 28, 2023
This is an excerpt from Tuesday’s episode of the “The ReidOut.” It has been slightly edited for length and clarity.
Joy-Ann Reid
Joy-Ann Reid is host of “The ReidOut” at 7 p.m. ET on MSNBC. “The ReidOut” features one-on-one conversations with politicians and newsmakers while addressing provocative political issues both inside and outside of the beltway.