‘Not Going to Fix It’ Lawmaker Now Says ‘Repenting Sins’ Only Solution to School Shootings

Rep. Tim Burchett doesn’t seem to realize why people are upset that he threw up his hands about the routine slaughtering of America’s children

Rep. Tim Burchett came clean on Monday about the Republican Party’s plan to address the national epidemic of school shootings. “We’re not going to fix it,” he told reporters.

The Tennessee representative clarified his comments on Thursday, explaining that there actually is one way to make progress. “Repenting of your sins and having some sort of reform in this country seems to me to be the way we’re going to have to turn this way around, because we have some sick and evil people doing some very vile things,” he said. “Revival seems to be the way to go for me.”

Burchett is clueless not only about how to address school shootings, but about why people took issue with his acknowledgement that the GOP isn’t going to do anything about them. “They come back to me and say, ‘Burchett, look what your prayers have done for us,’” he said when asked why people were mad about his comments Monday, adding that he realizes “there is hatred toward me and my beliefs.”

The issue isn’t that Burchett and his colleagues are praying for the victims and their families, of course; it’s that that’s all they seem willing to do. Republicans have made vague gestures toward improving the nation’s mental health, or proposed absurd measures like turning tens of thousands of schools into heavily armed compounds, but preventing Americans from hoarding the military-grade death machines used to carry out these mass shootings is not even up for discussion. This is why people were pissed when Burchett, a member of Congress with the power to enact legislation, threw up his hands over the routine slaughtering of America’s children.

Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) called Burchett out on Wednesday. “That Republican member of Congress and his entire conference are telling that family and that little girl, we’re not going to fix this,” she said on the Capitol steps, referencing a photo of girl in Nashville inside a school bus weeping. “Well, guess what? We have to fix it. It is our job to fix it. It is our obligation to fix it. House Democrats have acted over and over and over against to pass legislation to fix this. If not now, when?”

“To my Republican colleagues who refuse to act, if you don’t want to get to work, get out of the way so that the rest of us can,” Escobar continued. “Enough is enough.”