6 people shot dead at an American Christian school – 5 points on the case

What happened?

Three children and three adults were killed in a shooting at an elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee, on Monday. The person who allegedly committed the crime was shot dead by officers, the Nashville police said.

This prevented worse things, Nashville police chief John Drake later made clear. According to the police, the three adults killed are school employees and would be in their early sixties.

Police were alerted to the school around 10 a.m. (local time) on Monday morning. “When officers got to the second floor, they saw a gunman, a woman, shooting,” said Don Aaron of the Nashville Police Department. “We know she was armed with at least two assault rifles and a handgun.”

What kind of school is it?

Covenant Elementary School is a Christian private school located on a green hill in Nashville – the capital of the state of Tennessee with a population of almost 700,000. The school buildings are located in a quiet forest. The school teaches children from first to sixth grade. There is also a kindergarten there. According to the local newspaper The Tennessean, about 200 children are cared for there. The facility advertises a Christian mission statement as well as providing “a safe place where they can develop freely.”

Who is the suspect?

According to the police, Audrey Elizabeth Hale started the crime. The person is from Nashville. Before her death, Hale changed the personal pronouns on the online profiles to masculine (“he/him”). Hale is therefore described as a trans person – that is, as a person who does not identify with the gender assigned to him at birth.

Investigators said nothing about any connection between Hale’s life story and the crime. “There’s a theory right now that we might be able to talk about later, but it hasn’t been confirmed,” Drake said. According to the police, the person had obtained his weapons legally.

manifest found

The researchers are now evaluating material that could provide information about the motive. “We have a manifesto, we have some writings pertaining to this day, this incident that we are reviewing,” said Chief Constable Drake. Maps of the school were also found, on which surveillance cameras and entrances, among other things, were drawn.

Hale blew through an exterior glass door and gained entry to the school. According to the police, the person was still carrying several ammunition and may have wanted to attack other crime scenes as well. A car parked near the school provided clues to the perpetrator’s identity, Drake said.

How are American politicians reacting?

After the new attack, US President Joe Biden immediately called for tougher gun laws in the country – again. But his predecessors repeatedly failed to persuade parliament, which was riddled with party political divisions, to ban assault rifles and other effective protective measures. Biden is no different. That is why he is satisfied with small interventions, for which he is not dependent on Congress. However, without a substantial reform of the gun law, experts see no chance of real change.

For this to happen, Biden and his Democrats would have to depend on the willingness of Republicans in Congress to cooperate — but that’s not in sight at this point. Attempts to introduce stricter gun laws have been unsuccessful for years – mainly because the Republicans are against it. And because the gun lobby, led by the powerful National Rifle Association (NRA), vehemently opposes any attempt to tighten gun control. The devastating disasters in primary schools have not changed that.

White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre also issued an urgent appeal to Congress. “How many more children have to be killed before Republicans in Congress stand up and take action?” she said in Washington Monday. “Enough is enough,” she warned. “We need to do more.”

Biden has done more than any other president to address gun violence in the country. But now Congress must act urgently. “Our children must be able to feel safe at school,” says Jean-Pierre. Attacks like the one in Nashville are “devastating” and “heartbreaking”.

The US, the guns and the schools

In the US, shootings and even murders are part of sad everyday life. Assault rifles such as those used by the military, which can fire a large number of bullets in a short time, are very often used in this type of “mass shooting”. Most perpetrators are men. While in many countries an elaborate procedure must be followed to obtain a weapon, in many parts of the US it is easy to obtain a weapon – even weapons that were actually developed for war. According to the Small Arms Survey research project, there are more guns in circulation in the United States than anywhere else in the world. By far.

This is making for bleak records elsewhere, too: According to data from the CDC health authority, about 20,000 people were shot in the US in 2020 alone — more than 50 a day. In the same year, gun injuries became the leading cause of death for children and youth in the country, ahead of traffic accidents, for the first time. According to the White House, more students have been killed by gunfire in the past two decades than police officers and active-duty soldiers combined.

Even elementary schools are becoming crime scenes with alarming regularity — as in December 2012, when a 20-year-old shot 20 children and six teachers in Newtown, Connecticut. Even then there was great horror in the country, but other, no less incomprehensible atrocities followed: In May 2022, an 18-year-old in Uvalde, Texas, shot and killed 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school.

(con/sda/dpa)