Jesse Scheckner
Some lawmakers in Washington are learning the hard way that going toe-to-toe with freshman Democratic U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz on the issue of gun violence is a rough outing.
On Wednesday, the target of Moskowitz’s ire was Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, a prominent Second Amendment absolutist and conspiracy theorist whom he castigated for putting politics and culture wars over children’s safety.
Their exchange came during a discussion in the House Oversight and Accountability Committee over the Monday massacre at a private, Christian elementary school in Nashville, where a shooter killed six people, including three 9-year-olds, before being killed by police.
It has been reported the shooter may be transgender, something Greene and other conservatives seized on as a major cause for the murders while sidestepping the fact the assailant legally obtained seven guns, including at least two AR-15-style assault rifles.
Greene said Wednesday that President Joe Biden, among others, is at fault for the shooting because of legislation he supported as a Senator in 1990 under former President George H.W. Bush, a Republican, establishing schools as gun-free zones. She once again recounted a story about how shortly after the law passed, a student brought guns to her high school, prompting a lockdown and exemplifying a need for more guns — not less — in public spaces.
The gun-free zone law, which received overwhelming, bipartisan support, wasn’t even introduced until close to three months after the incident at Greene’s high school.
“Joe Biden made our schools gun-free school zones,” she said. “There was no good guy with a gun to protect us kids at school.”
“You want to know why the shooter is dead in Nashville, the trans shooter? You want to know why? Because the good guy with a gun killed that woman,” Greene continued. “She identified as a man. She was mentally ill, probably taking hormones. And she went and murdered children and adults in this Christian school in Nashville. So, if you want to have a good talk about schools and protecting children, we need to talk about protecting our children the same way we protect our President, we protect our celebrities, we protect this building.”
That’s where Moskowitz — whose passionate speech on the Florida House floor after the 2018 massacre in Parkland helped pass the state’s first gun safety law in two decades — interjected.
First, he asserted Republicans repealed the 1994 federal ban on assault weapons. (The law lapsed under a divided Congress in 2004.) He then accurately noted that as one of his first actions in office, former President Donald Trump — whom Greene has endorsed for President — revoked protections his predecessor put in place that added people with mental illness to the national background check database.
“There are six people that are dead in that school, including three children, because you guys got rid of the assault weapons ban, because you guys made it easy for people who don’t deserve to have weapons, who are mentally incapable of having weapons of war, (to be) able to buy those weapons and go into schools,” he argued.
“I voted for (school resource officers) in my schools in Florida after Parkland. We have SROs in every school. Did the good guys with the gun stop six people from getting murdered? No.”
He continued, “AR-15s, do you see what those bullets do to children? You know why they don’t hunt with an AR-15 (for) a deer? Because there’s nothing left. And there’s nothing left of these kids when people go into schools and murder them.”
Moskowitz then took aim at legislation Green and Republican U.S. Rep. George Santos are sponsoring to ban books with LGBTQ content from schools, an effort reflective of similar initiatives in several states, including Florida.
“You guys are worried about banning books,” he said. “Dead kids can’t read.”
Firearms recently overtook motor vehicle crashes as the No. 1 cause of death in the U.S. for children and adolescents.
“You guys are worried about banning books — dead kids can’t read.”
— Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) hits back at Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) over gun safety following the Nashville school mass shooting pic.twitter.com/VdaLlsBboO
— The Recount (@therecount) March 29, 2023
10 comments
Lynda
March 29, 2023 at 5:53 pm
Democrats will no longer let chaos candidates like Greene get away with idiotic lies. Good for Jared Moskowitz for standing up for school children to be safe from mentally ill people allowed to buy guns because of GQP actions. Let’s get together as reasonable people on wanting children to stay alive more than we want to allow any person—much less a mentally ill person—to buy seven guns, two of which are weapons for mass killing.
Time to Act. Ban Assault weapons Now.
Florida_Buckeye
April 1, 2023 at 2:39 am
Lynda, you sound exactly like those GQP types you seem to hate so much. The Obama era rule was so broadly written that it would have covered anyone that drew SSI for any form of mental illness (which is anything in the DSM-5TR) and anyone that has a person with authority to handle their financial affairs.
There were no carve-outs, exceptions, or appeals process. Since 9/11/01 there have been about 3 Million service members that have served in the GWOT. The Department of Veterans Affairs estimates 15 to 20% percent of Veterans have been diagnosed with PTSD. This would have affected hundreds of thousands of veterans.
Banning any weapon is not going to happen. The reason you might ask. Evil exists in this world, and unfortunately, no government can legislate evil out of the world. Banning a specific weapon is a stopgap half-measure. A disturbed or evil person that is intent on committing an evil act is going to find a way. This person was intent on dying that day. If it were impossible to acquire a firearm they would have gone to any other weapon imaginable.
Charlotte Greenbarg
March 30, 2023 at 7:47 am
Do you really think banning “assault weapons” as you call them which stop somebody who’s bound and determined to get one and go out and kill? That is a simplistic answer. There were obvious signs that the killers needed intervention, but no one paid any attention.
Ocean Joe
March 30, 2023 at 9:36 am
Take a look at the numbers prior to and since our ban on assault rifles was allowed to sunset:
https://time.com/4965022/deadliest-mass-shooting-us-history/
Guess it’s OK as long as it’s somebody else doing the dying.
Ian
March 30, 2023 at 9:53 am
During the 10-year period the federal assault weapons ban was in effect, mass shooting fatalities were 70% less likely to occur compared to the periods before and after the ban.
So yeah!!!
Florida_Buckeye
April 3, 2023 at 4:04 pm
Yeah, while it is better than most other trackers The Gun Violence Archive is not exactly 100% accurate.
I’ve been looking through the homicide numbers by the FDLE.
They do not fit your narrative
Elliott Offen
March 30, 2023 at 9:47 am
Mercury Ed not posting comments. On the run from Ed brand Mercury shampoo lawsuits. Sitting in a hot tub full of mercury.
JR Ft Laud
March 30, 2023 at 12:13 pm
Spot on Charlotte. There was no statistical difference in shooting because of the ban.
She had a mental illness and her parents knew it. She should not have been permitted to get guns. Trans is a mental illness.
Jared is typical off base lefty, the good guys with guns stopped more people from being killed!
Grow up leftists,! You are okay with killing 1,000,000 babies a year so it’s no wonder she had hate in her heart.
boogieman
March 30, 2023 at 6:47 pm
No, bigotry is a mental illness. You are clearly the one here with hate in your heart. You are clearly okay with murdering living children with assault weapons, but refuse to recognize abortion as the safe medical procedure it is: it is health care provided to a woman by a medical professional, not a politician or a religious zealot. Your typical right wing hypocrisy is what’s off base.
JR Ft Laud
March 31, 2023 at 8:52 am
Nope! A mentally ill trans individual murdered six people and you’re focused on being a moron. She was seeking mental health care, so even she knew she was screwed up in the head.
You support killing babies so no wonder you don’t care about helping a mentally ill person. Go back to your hole.
Jared will do nothing to help other Vengeance seeking mentally ill people that will be protesting this weekend, nor will a leftist fool like you.
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