Fresh off a Twitter ban for using hateful and abusive language against transgender people, Marjorie Taylor Greene took to her second Twitter account to continue to spread her daily lies. Surprise – it involves guns and hating trans people.
Greene shared a clip of herself at a congressional hearing where she was once again peddling the debunked theory that “a good guy with a gun” will stop a bad one. Basically, she wants more guns in schools. Not exactly sure how adding more guns to stop gun violence is supposed to work, but whatever.
Look out everybody, she’s “ready to have a conversation.” Oh boy, this should be good. In the clip, Representative Jared Moskowitz talks about how murder in schools is murder, which, wait till he finds out the sky is blue. What a conclusion to come to on his own.
Then Greene spoke up.
“When I was in 11th grade and Joe Biden made our schools gun free school zones, one of the students in my school brought three guns to school and our entire school went on lockdown because he was the only person with a gun.”
Some context, before we go on: In Sept. 1990, a teen held a group of 40-50 students hostage at South Forsyth High School. Greene was a sophomore at the time, and was not one of the students who were taken hostage.
She often brings up the incident to bolster her argument that we need more guns in schools. While the story is true, the idea that Joe Biden introduced the “Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990” is a falsehood.
Regardless, it’s part of Greene’s M.O. to attack blame Biden for literally everything that happens on Earth. It’s such a weak, playground tactic, but it energizes the Republican base, so what can you do.
“There was no good guy with a gun to protect us kids at school,” she goes on to say. “You know why that shooter is dead? You wanna know why? Because a good guy with a gun killed that woman.”
Really? It was not a “good guy with a gun” that saved the day. It was the police. The same group that negotiated with the hostage- taker in 1990. Police. What is her argument here? It has more holes than Swiss cheese. What is happening?
Her follow-up argument is that we need to protect children the same way protect “our president and celebrities.” Once again, an apples-to-oranges comparison that feels like something a middle schooler would come up with.
Let’s take a look at this “good guy with a gun” argument that Republicans use to justify gun ownership. Per the Center for Policing Equity:
“[The] presence of so-called ‘good guys with guns’ all-too-frequently fails to prevent such tragedies or actively increases the danger of the moment—even when the people with the guns are trained, armed, and depended upon to provide public safety.”
Alright so if the police can’t do it then maybe we just arm all citizens? One study shows that “people in possession of a gun may be more than four times more likely to be shot in an assault.”
According to Giffords.org, an organization led by former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), herself a victim of gun violence, “People successfully defend themselves with guns in less than 1% of crimes in which there is contact between a perpetrator and a victim.”
Also, “Having access to a gun doesn’t better protect people from being injured during a crime compared to other protective actions like calling law enforcement or fleeing the scene.”
But yes, let’s throw guns at the problem, instead of passing laws to protect kids. That definitely makes the most sense.