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Mitch McConnell Says There Isn't Much the Government Can Do About School Shootings and the Father of a Parkland Shooting Victim Just Clapped Back

Savage.

Brandon Gage
Jul. 03, 2018
Mitch McConnell Says There Isn't Much the Government Can Do About School Shootings and the Father of a Parkland Shooting Victim Just Clapped Back
WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 11: U.S. Senate Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) listens during a news briefing after the weekly Senate Republican Policy Luncheon July 11, 2017 at the Capitol in Washington, DC. Sen. McConnell announced that Senate will delay its recess to the third week of August. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter Jaime was murdered in February's massacre at Majorie Stoneman Douglas High School, eviscerated Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on Twitter Tuesday afternoon after McConnell said there isn't much the federal government can do to prevent school shootings.

Speaking to community leaders in his home state of Kentucky on Tuesday, McConnell said:

“I don’t think at the federal level there’s much that we can do other than appropriate funds."

In his blistering response, Guttenberg tweeted that McConnell is "demonstrably wrong" about the government's ability to curb gun violence, and closesd his tweet with a clear message for McConnell: "YOU SHOULD RESIGN."

Twitter flooded with support for the bereaved father, who has become one of the most vocal proponents of gun control following the Valentine's Day shooting in Parkland, Florida that left 17 students and teachers dead and 17 others injured.

One person echoed the sentiment that McConnell is "evil in particular," and it's "what he enjoys being most."

Another follower said that McConnell simply doesn't want to "let go of the blood money he gets from the NRA."

"The SCOTUS-seat stealing fool needs to go."

One user noted that "Congress CAN pass universal background checks which virtually all Americans support but he won’t even do that."

Indeed, McConnell's campaign coffers enjoy a sizeable cushion of money that has flowed from the nation's largest gun lobby. Over the course of his political career, McConnell has received $1,261,874 in contributions from the NRA.

“I don’t think at the federal level there’s much that we can do other than appropriate funds,” McConnell said at an event on Tuesday. He added that gun safety measures are "basically a local decision."

You would think, given how much it takes to get on an American plane or given how much it takes to get into courthouses, that this might be something that we could achieve, but I don’t think we could do that from Washington, I think it’s basically a local decision.

“It’s a darn shame that’s where we are, but this epidemic is something that’s got all of our attention,” he added. “And I know it’s got the attention of every school superintendent in the country."

Excuses, excuses.

Shortly after the Parkland shooting, President Donald Trump signed a spending bill that contained "a provision that aimed to improve state compliance with the national background check system for gun purchases," explained NBC News.
"The bill also provided more than $2 billion for school safety, far more than the $50 million the House passed in the STOP School Violence Act, and more than the $100 million in the Senate version of a similar bill," NBC noted. "Democrats had argued that the $2 billion figure is Republican spin because that total includes money for programs that already exist. The measure did not provide money for arming teachers."

Calls for universal background checks, which as of February have the support of 97 percent of Americans, have been ignored by the Republican-led Congress.
In the first 177 days of 2018, there have been 154 mass shootings in the United States. School shootings account for 23 of those incidents.