Thread by @AnnaCaudill4

Last night I attended #AfterCovenant, a moderated discussion on what comes next for my community as far as change on gun violence in the wake of the #CovenantSchool shooting, in which my friend was murdered. 1/
Video here:

I was grateful that Dr. @alexjahangir led by describing the current situation in America as a public health crisis & comparing the need for legislative response to this crisis to the legislative response that happened when cars were the leading cause of death for young people.2/

https://twitter.com/annacaudill4/status/1660787708174761986

I was also moved by @PreacherClay’s pastoral care of his flock AND the greater Nashville community in hosting last night’s event. I appreciated his strong affirmation of school children’s right to life. 3/

https://twitter.com/annacaudill4/status/1660803035696603136

I was also encouraged to hear @bfrist caution against stigmatizing mental illness as a cause of gun violence, when it is present in only 4% of gun related crime. 4/

And then @bfrist shocked me by calling for school-based threat assessments, flagging children based on psychological, behavioral, or developmental issues as potentially threatening, conflating issues that should trigger IDEA Child Find with bullying. 5/

https://twitter.com/annacaudill4/status/1660796815342534662?s=46&t=FCM17GlAkQKj7AVbNoYTkg

I’m a special education advocate & member of @COPAA, the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates. Since at least 2018, COPAA’s extensive research has found that threat assessments are actually part of the problem. 6/

copaa.org/page/SchoolCli…

It’s not uncivil for me to raise this objection, and I approached @bfrist with it afterwards in person, because disabled children deserve better than to be labeled a threat to their peers’ lives based on psychological, behavioral, or developmental factors. 7/

@bfrist responded that I raised a good point, then doubled down on the need to “profile” (his words not mine) based on those 3 categories, while also acknowledging there’s not a consistent profile of school shooters. How is this not stigmatizing? 8/

I’m tagging @bfrist in hopes he’ll continue the discussion he initiated at Woodmont last night. He commented at one point last night that social media is not the place to engage if you’re trying to make cultural change happen…which tickled me. 😉 9/

https://twitter.com/daviddark/status/1660999340159119365?s=46&t=FCM17GlAkQKj7AVbNoYTkg

When @NC5_BenHall (brilliant moderator!) asked @PreacherClay about social media’s role in gun violence, he pivoted to violent video games. Some folks might take that as a cop-out, but I think it helps us talk about gun reform we may otherwise miss. I’m glad to talk about it. 10/

https://twitter.com/annacaudill4/status/1660802536813608960

When #SandyHook parents settled with gun manufacturer Remington in February, a key focus of their civil case was product placement of Remington guns—including the one used by the SH shooter—in video games. These are paid-for targeted advertising spots. 11/apnews.com/article/sandy-…

When people protest that “law-abiding” gun manufacturers shouldn’t be liable for the violent massacres committed with their products, how many know the advertising work those manufacturers put into selling weapons designed for military use? 12/

I had hoped in the spirit of good faith that @bfrist might acknowledge his role as Senate Majority Leader in allowing the assault weapons ban to expire…a decision that was a turning point in mass shootings. 13/

statesman.com/story/news/pol…

While @bfrist noted 1 in 20 (or 16,613,000 BILLION) Americans owns at least one assault rifle, he did not mention that when he led the 2004 US Senate in allowing the AR ban to expire, there were only 1.5 million assault weapons total in private hands. 14/ statesman.com/story/news/pol…

Not only that, but @bfrist also led the US Senate through passage of a federal bill limiting the civil liability of gun manufacturers for mass shootings.
A bill similar to the one @GovBillLee signed 7 weeks after #CovenantSchool. 15/

cbsnews.com/news/senate-vo…

I think it’s not fair to tell #CovenantSchool survivors that policy isn’t going to solve the problem of school shootings, as @bfrist did last night, when policy—more specifically, the policies he led on the federal level 20 years ago—got us here.
All I want is some honesty. 16/

I confess I felt a specific responsibility to directly seek a morally serious response from @bfrist last night. He’s my neighbor, living in Nashville, & his leadership has had consequences. We can’t hope to tackle gun reform without being clear-eyed about how we got here. /f

*16.7 Million (gah). This is why I shouldn’t have started writing this on paper at 7am.