school shootings
A GOP congresswoman from Tennessee who is running to be the state’s next governor blamed pornography — and the decline of the family support system — for school shootings, according to reports.
“Pornography, it’s available, it’s available on the shelf when you walk in the grocery store,” Rep. Diane Black said during a listening session with ministers at Safe Harbor of Clarksville, Tenn., The Tennessean reported, citing audio obtained by HuffPost.
“Yeah, you have to reach up to get it, but there’s pornography there. All of this is available without parental guidance,” she said. “And I think that is a big part of the root cause that we see so many young people that have mental illness get caught in these places.”
Black made the porn comment as she pondered what drives some kids to violence.
“What makes them do that? Because as a nurse, I go back to root causes,” Black offered.
“I think it’s deterioration of the family,” she added, citing the expression “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.”
Black said that without a family support mechanism, teens turn to the internet, violent movies and porn — though she didn’t specify what it is about porn that she believes is leading to school massacres.
Chris Hartline, a spokesman for Black, told CNN that the congresswoman “believes the breakdown of families and communities plays a significant role in instances of school violence.”
Conservatives and gun control opponents have searched for explanations for school shootings that don’t place the blame on the availability of firearms.
“In response to mass shootings, liberals have called for banning and confiscating all guns,” Black’s campaign website says. “We must recognize mental health issues are the cause of mass gun violence, not the guns themselves.”
After the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that killed 17 people in Parkland, Fla., the state’s House of Representatives OK’d a measure declaring porn a public health risk the same day the GOP-controlled chamber voted to reject gun control measures.
Moms Demand Action founder Shannon Watts slammed Black’s statement, saying that “despite all of the data and experts at her disposal,” she “chooses to blame ‘grocery store pornography’ for school shootings. And she doesn’t mean the magazines that glorify guns.”
There have been 23 shootings so far in 2018 on the campuses of K-12 schools or colleges, according to HuffPost.