U.S. Representative Tim Burchett (R-TN-02) went on Fox Business to talk how to make schools safer for our children.
“We’re trying to treat the symptoms and not the cause. The cause is obviously mental health,” he said.
Burchett made clear that he does not believe that trampling on the Second Amendment is the solution for safer schools.
“You take away the guns, look at Timothy McVeigh at Oklahoma City, the bombing – over, well over a hundred folks lost their lives. What did he use? Ammonium nitrate and diesel fuel,” said Burchett.
“My father fought in the Second World War in the Pacific. He was in the Marine Corps. He fought the Japanese. And he told me, ‘Buddy,” he said, ‘if someone is willing to lose their life to take you out, there’s not really a whole lot you can do about it,’ and that’s really where we’re at in this society today.”
“But we’ve got to address the mental health issue,” Burchett added. “Continuing to penalize law-abiding citizens, to me, is the wrong course,” he said. “The president, he took an oath to uphold the Constitution and the Constitution is very clear in that regard, in my opinion.”
Burchett pointed to Knox County as a model for how to keep children safe in schools.
“When I was mayor of Knox County in Tennessee, we bit the bullet. We did that. We have secure facilities. You’ve got to buzz to get in. Once you get in, you’re in a secure area and then you’ve got to buzz to get into the area, to get into the office,” the U.S. representative said.
“They can either turn you away or let you in,” he said, describing how school security in Knox County works. “You know, we sent $40 billion unchecked dollars, basically, to Ukraine, a country in Europe where most people probably couldn’t find it on the map months ago and we should be able to find the money to do this.”
“We should provide block grants and allow communities to opt-in if they if they want to – and look at what’s worked in communities and what hasn’t worked in communities,” said Burchett.
“Currently what we’re doing obviously isn’t working – doing nothing – but in communities where [bolstering security protocol] has worked – as in where I come from – it works very well,” he added.
“We can all agree something needs to be done, and ensuring schools have the necessary resources to secure their facilities is a simple but necessary step we should take,” Burchett additionally said in the tweet in which he shared his Fox Business interview.
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Aaron Gulbransen is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected]. Follow Aaron on GETTR, Twitter, and Parler.
Photo “Tim Burchett” by U.S. House of Representatives. Background Photo “Classroom” by Marie. CC BY-SA 2.0.
