Reps. Lance Gooden (R-TX) and Andy Ogles (R-TN) are urging Attorney General Merrick Garland to classify the Nashville Christian school shooting a hate crime.
Breitbart News reported the 28-year-old attacker who shot and killed six people at the school was a transgender and a former student.
The Hill noted Gooden and Ogles highlighted the fact the school is an extension of a church building and they believe the religious nature of the Christian institution played on a role in it being targeted.
Gooden and Ogles wrote, “The plain text of federal law makes clear that an act of violence against any person based on a number of factors, including their religion, is a hate crime.”
A message to the school is one of many at a memorial for victims at an entry to Covenant School, Tuesday, March 28, 2023, in Nashville, Tenn., following a fatal shooting a day earlier. (AP Photo/John Amis)
They added, “This type of violence is indefensible, unjustifiable, and grotesque. The anti-conservative rhetoric and constant attacks on Christianity by the radical Left have led to the violent murders of three children and three adults.”
Sens. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and John Kennedy (R-LA) have called for the Christian school attack to be considered a hate crime as well, but Garland has thus claimed the transgender attacker’s motive is unknown.
The attacker left behind a manifesto which has not been released to the public.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. AWR Hawkins holds a Ph.D. in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.