This week, Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said that the United States should follow “other great democracies” like Australia and the United Kingdom, which have confiscated and banned firearms, to put an end to mass shootings.
"Today, we renew our call for common sense gun safety legislation, including a ban on assault weapons. This is an epidemic that our great nation must solve," Weingarten said at an AFT event on Tuesday. “How many lives will be shattered before we have the courage to do what Scotland did, what Australia did, what New Zealand did, what other great democracies do? We must solve this epidemic and that’s up to us.”
BREAKING: Teachers union leader Randi Weingarten calls for a complete ban on guns and a repeal of the Second Amendment.
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) March 28, 2023
They’re coming for your guns so you won’t be able to defend yourself against the woke terrorists.
pic.twitter.com/6bptHNZipZ
According to Fox News, Scotland got the United Kingdom to ban handguns in 1996 following a school shooting. Australia issued a mandatory “gun buyback” program that same year for semi-automatic rifles and shotguns. New Zealand issued a semi-automatic and “military-style” weapons ban in 2019 after a mass shooting that killed 50 people.
Fox News added that Weingarten said in an interview later that day that her words at the AFT event were “doctored” to say that she was calling for gun confiscation.
"Frankly, I saw today in my speech when I called on us to do a moment of silence for the Tennessee Christian school to, you know, in a speech that I was giving to public school parents and teachers, but to also renew a call for the assault weapons ban. And then somebody doctored the speech and said I was calling to confiscate guns. So, all day long that’s what I’ve been dealing with," Weingarten reportedly said.
This week, a mass shooting at a Christian school in Nashville left three 9-year-old children and three adults dead. The shooter, identified as 28-year-old Audrey Hale, identified as “transgender” and reportedly attended the school as a child. Hale was shot and killed by police in the attack. As Matt covered, transgender advocacy groups said that Hale felt “no other effective way to be seen” as a transgender person other than to commit murder.