Nashville violence, protests, put gun control firmly at center of civic conversations

Photo courtesy of CNN Instagram

There have been 140 mass shootings in 2023, more shootings than days in the year. One more school shooting has been added to the list (at least at the time of the writing of this story…). On March 27, three kids and three adults were killed by a shooter at the Covenant School, a private Christian elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee.  

The elementary students who died were Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney; all were merely nine years old. The victims among the staff were identified as Cynthia Peak, a substitute teacher; Mike Hill, a custodian; and Katherine Koonce, the head of the school. 

Freshman Delaney Smith is fed up with the frequency of such crimes in the country.

“It’s agonizing to constantly see shootings like this on the news,” she said. “I feel like every few days we see another school shooting, and guns seem to get more and more accessible to the general public.”

The shooting lasted an excruciating 16 minutes before the perpetrator was killed after being shot four times by the Nashville Metro Police. 

Social studies teacher Michael Allen has been keeping up with news of the shooting and thinks that the police did exactly what they were supposed to do.

“The shooter seemed to have been shooting out of the second story window at the police that were coming to stop the shooting,” he said. “I definitely think that deadly force was required in such a situation.” 

The culprit was identified as Audrey Hale, a local resident and alumni of the school. Tennessee Metro Police are still investigating Hale’s motive for the attack, but it has been made clear that the attack was deliberately planned. The Tennessee Metro Police have announced that the shooter had made numerous maps and drawings of the school, which included entrances and classroom locations. 

Dr. Michael Jasinski, a political science professor at UWO, finds that it is common for such an attack to be premeditated. 

“These sorts of shootings usually happen to be intentionally planned and calculated,” he said. “Since it’s known that Hale was an alumni of this school, it seems likely that she had strong abhorrence towards her experiences at Covenant Elementary School.”

Hale was a 28-year-old with no criminal record. However, according to the Nashville Police Chief, she had been under doctor’s care for an emotional disorder. Smith thinks that action needs to be taken in order to prevent something like this shooting from happening again.

“I definitely think that solutions need to be created and followed through with to prevent people with intent to harm from using guns,” she said. “Preventative measures should be executed with considerable urgency, because again, I feel like I’m constantly seeing another shooting on the news.”

Smith isn’t the only one demanding change; on March 30, three days after the shooting, thousands of protesters gathered outside of Tennessee's state capitol in hopes of bringing a call to action for stricter gun laws. Allen finds that these political uproars after such tragic events have polar opposite viewpoints, and they come with great division.

“Every time you have one of these shootings, you get massive outcry from both sides of the spectrum,” he said. “One side you’ve got the gun rights advocates, who are justifying the use of guns through the Second Amendment. On the other side, you have people rallying for anti-gun laws, who are encouraging more thorough background checks.”

At the same time, three state representatives led the protests in the chamber of the capitol of Tennessee. The protest was intentionally scheduled to delay the hearing of a bill that would expand gun access in Tennessee. Smith values such acts of protests and thinks that they can be a step in the right direction.

“I believe that protesting against these types of legislation might take steps towards more gun control,” she said. “Which is something that this shooting has definitely brought to light in Tennessee.”

The three state representatives protesting were Democrats Justin Jones, Justin Pearson, and Gloria Johnson. On April 3, Jones, Pearson, and Johnson were notified of the possibility of being expelled from the House because of their involvement in the protests. The next day, a law was passed by the state legislature allowing private schools to hire school resource officers from local police departments to prevent future shootings. This law was made effective immediately. Steps like this have made many hopeful that effective legislation towards gun control is possible, and Jasinski thinks that there is one thing that both sides can agree on: there needs to be an end to school shootings.

“Despite how divided the issue of gun violence is,” he said. “I think most would agree that the high rates of mortality because of them is an issue that needs to be solved in a bipartisan way.”

By Kassandra-Bowlus Jasinski

April 24 2023

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