Texas Congressman Lance Gooden and Tennessee Congressman Andy Ogles are calling on Attorney General Merrick Garland to classify the Nashville Christian school shooting that took place on March 27, 2023 a hate crime. Per a Breitbart News report, the 28-year-old assailant who shot and killed six people at the school was a transgender and a former student.
The Hill reported that Gooden and Ogles called attention to how the school is an extension of a church building. In turn, they argued that the religious nature of the Chrisitian facility played a role in it being a target for the deranged murderer.
Gooden and Ogles wrote, “The plain text of federal law makes clear that an act of violence against any person based on a number of factors, including their religion, is a hate crime.”
They continued, “This type of violence is indefensible, unjustifiable, and grotesque. The anti-conservative rhetoric and constant attacks on Christianity by the radical Left have led to the violent murders of three children and three adults.”
Missouri Senator Josh Hawley and Louisiana Senator John Kennedy have also called for the Christian school mass shooting to be classified as a hate crime. Thus far, Garland has asserted that the transgender assailant’s motive is not known.
While classifying this incident as a hate crime is an appropriate “fight fire with fire” measure, Republicans must continue putting the squeeze on the transgender industrial complex and go after its financiers and ideological enablers. These people cannot be allowed to continue to operate in the political system with impunity.