A Fox News segment went viral on Monday after a guest on the conservative network pointed to a pattern in school shootings.
His concern isn’t the common denominator in all the shootings — access to guns — but unlocked doors.
“That seems to be a common pattern in a lot of these shootings, the side door. If we can lock the side door and make sure the school is safe, hopefully we can avoid this tragedy,” former FBI agent Nicole Parker said when discussing Monday’s shooting on The Covenant School in Nashville who left three children and three. adults die.
During his comments, Parker did not mention the firearm used by the shooter. According to police, 28-year-old Audrey Hale was carrying a rifle, an assault rifle-style pistol and a handgun when she was killed by officers at the scene.
What’s more, Hale apparently entered the school through a locked side door by firing shots, according to Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake.
The commentary clip posted by Twitter user and media watcher @Acyn was viewed more than 4 million times in a matter of hours.
Parker announced his departure from the FBI in an opinion piece for Fox News published in January. He claimed he was concerned about the “politicization” of the bureau, citing the image of an FBI agent kneeling during a Black Lives Matter protest in June 2020.
Her comments on Fox News sparked an online uproar amid renewed calls from gun safety advocates, families of gun violence victims, Democrats and other commentators for stronger gun control laws in the US.
Many commenters noted the obvious – the side door is not the problem.
“Side doors don’t kill innocent children – assault weapons,” Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) tweeted. “But that’s not what your NRA wants, is it @Fox News?”
Others point out that school doors — locked or unlocked — aren’t a problem in states where access to firearms, especially military-style assault weapons like the AR-15, isn’t easy.
The gun lobby has great influence over Fox News, where its commentators and guests routinely shift their focus to other issues instead of discussing gun control, which the National Rifle Association (NRA) opposes in the wake of gun violence.
After the elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, in which 19 children and adults died last year, for example, everything from bulletproof blankets, tripwire booby traps, “less faith” and, again, door controls, were proposed by the host. and guests in the network in lieu of directing the renewal of the gun.