MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell chastised Republicans for expecting police officers to respond to active shooters similar to how members of the Metro Nashville Police Department responded during the shooting at a private Christian school.
The attack was stopped after police killed the assailant, who identified as transgender, within 14 minutes of the first 9-1-1 call. Three children and three adults were killed before police were able to stop the shooter.
"This mass shooting world did not exist before Columbine. You know, Columbine happened, then a few years later, Aurora happened, then a few years later, another tragedy happened, Virginia Tech happened. Suddenly, though, it’s like after Sandy Hook, it’s just — it is a constant in our lives. And yet faced with this gun epidemic, you actually have the governor of Tennessee claiming he wants to protect schools, but this is the same governor that signed laws that allowed permitless carry and open carry," host Joe Scarborough said
"The Republican policy, at this point, is to say our defensive kids in school is the hope that the very first officers who get the call about the mass murder in a school will be as heroic as the two who we just saw run into that school without shields. They didn’t wait for those shields that the guys in — in Texas waited for. They didn’t wait for anything. They ran straight to the sound of the gun, straight to the sound of the shooter. And they took out the shooter. And so they took out the shooter after the shooter killed six people," O’Donnell replied.
"So the Republican policy in effect is we’re going to try to get — the cops there as fast as possible so that they can keep the body count down as low as possible if — if the police officers have the superhuman courage to run straight to the sound of the gunfire, which we know not all police officers do," he continued. "And so it is — you know, it is just beyond horrifying, that — that that’s where we’ve left it. And you know, you don’t have to be that old to have lived in a different world."
Republicans in Congress have called for more funding for armed school security, not just having officers respond quicker.