GOP Dismisses More Gun Control Amid Anguish Of Another School Shooting

The Hill: Senate GOP: Gun Reform Legislation Unlikely After Nashville School Shooting
Senate Republicans on Monday cast doubt on the possibility of legislative action on firearms in response to the shooting at a school in Nashville, Tenn., earlier in the day. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) told reporters that he does not believe the Senate can go any further on firearm-related bills or on expanding background checks than the chamber did last year when it passed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act following the mass school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. The legislation was the most consequential gun safety package signed into law in three decades and became law with bipartisan support, with Cornyn as the lead GOP negotiator for the legislation. (Weaver, 3/27)

The New York Times: Biden Calls On Congress To Pass An Assault Weapons Ban. That Is Unlikely
President Biden has repeatedly called for such a ban in recent public speeches and visits, including during a recent visit to Monterey Park, Calif., where a gunman killed 11 people at a dance studio in January. His remarks on Monday once again highlighted not only the scourge of mass shootings in America, but also the limits of his power to address them. Even with majorities in both houses of Congress during Mr. Biden’s first two years in office, Democrats were unable to pass a ban, and any effort now would be all but certain to die in the Republican-controlled House. That has left Mr. Biden with few options but the bully pulpit. (Rogers, 3/27)

The Hill: House Judiciary Postpones Pistol Brace Rule Markup After Nashville Shooting 
The House Judiciary Committee postponed a scheduled Tuesday markup on a resolution to nullify a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) pistol brace rule following the mass shooting at a Nashville, Tennessee, school on Monday. “Democrats were going to turn this tragic event into a political thing,” Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) told The Hill on Monday evening. (Brooks, 3/27)

How the massacre unfolded in Nashville —

The New York Times: Shooter Who Killed 6 At Nashville School Was A Former Student, Police Say
A 28-year-old from Nashville fatally shot three children and three adults on Monday at a private Christian elementary school, officials said, leaving behind writings and detailed maps of the school and its security protocols. In the latest episode of gun violence that has devastated American families and communities, the assailant opened fire just after 10 a.m. inside the Covenant School, in the affluent Green Hills neighborhood, where children in preschool through sixth grade had just begun their final full week of classes before Easter break. (Cochrane, Shpigel, Levenson and Jimenez, 3/27)

The Washington Post: Nashville School Shooter Who Killed 6 Was Heavily Armed, Left Manifesto
Police said the shooter, Audrey Elizabeth Hale, 28, of Nashville, was armed with two semiautomatic weapons — an AR-15-style rifle, an “AR-style pistol” and a handgun. At least two of the weapons were purchased legally, according to Drake, who did not give the status of the third. He said Hale had “multiple rounds of ammunition prepared for confrontation with law enforcement” and was “prepared to do more harm.” The department late Monday released images of the weapons, adding that Hale had “significant ammunition.” Tennessee’s gun laws, like those in many conservative states, are comparatively loose. The state allows people to own automatic assault weapons and does not have a law banning high-capacity magazines. (Mueller, Shammas, Brasch and Bailey, 3/27)

NBC News: Police Chief Tells NBC News A Sense Of ‘Resentment’ May Have Fueled Nashville Shooter’s Attack At Former School
A sense of “resentment” might have played a role in a 28-year-old’s deadly attack on the private Christian school they once attended, Nashville police said Monday. The shooter, Nashville resident Audrey Hale, had no previous criminal record before opening fire at The Covenant School, killing three children and three adults, authorities said. “There’s some belief that there was some resentment for having to go to that school,” Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake told Lester Holt of NBC News. ... Officials “feel that she identifies as trans, but we’re still in the initial investigation into all of that and if it actually played a role into this incident,” Drake said. (Li, Ortiz and Lenthang, 3/27)

The Washington Post: Woman Who Survived Other Mass Killing Crashes Nashville News Conference 
A police spokesman had just finished updating reporters on the mass killing at a Nashville school when Ashbey Beasley suddenly stepped up to the clutch of microphones and asked, “Aren’t you guys tired of covering this?” She wasn’t an official or a member of law enforcement. She was a mom, she explained, who had grabbed her 6-year-old son and run months earlier when a gunman opened fire at a parade in Highland Park, Ill. Some TV stations cut away. Others continued rolling as Beasley, speaking quickly and forcefully, decried America’s epidemic of gun violence. She asked, “How is this still happening? How are our children still dying?” (Shammas, 3/27)

More about assault weapons —

The Washington Post: What Does An AR-15 Do To A Human Body? A Visual Examination Of The Deadly Damage. 
The Washington Post examined autopsy and postmortem reports from nearly a hundred victims of past mass shootings that involved an AR-15 style rifle. (Kirkpatrick, Mirza and Canales, 3/27)

The Washington Post: How The AR-15 Became A Powerful Political, Cultural Symbol In America
The AR-15 wasn’t supposed to be a bestseller. The rugged, powerful weapon was originally designed as a soldiers’ rifle in the late 1950s. “An outstanding weapon with phenomenal lethality,” an internal Pentagon report raved. It soon became standard issue for U.S. troops in the Vietnam War, where the weapon earned a new name: the M16. (Frankel, Boburg, Dawsey, Parker and Horton, 3/27)

The Washington Post: High-Capacity-Magazine Bans Could Save Lives. Will They Hold Up In Court?
In the aftermath of the Dayton massacre and another hours earlier in El Paso, all the familiar debates ignited over guns, assault weapons bans, mental health interventions and red-flag laws. Yet much of the public discussion overlooked a key factor in Dayton, something that connected the massacre to the carnage unleashed by mass shooters in Orlando, Las Vegas, Buffalo and other communities: the ammunition magazines that can enable gunmen to fire a hail of bullets without needing to stop and reload. (Berman and Frankel, 3/27)

Think your teen can't get ahold of a gun? Think again —

KHN: As Colorado Reels From Another School Shooting, Study Finds 1 In 4 Teens Have Quick Access To Guns 
One in 4 Colorado teens reported they could get access to a loaded gun within 24 hours, according to survey results published Monday. Nearly half of those teens said it would take them less than 10 minutes. “That’s a lot of access and those are short periods of time,” said Virginia McCarthy, a doctoral candidate at the Colorado School of Public Health and the lead author of the research letter describing the findings in the medical journal JAMA Pediatrics. (Hawryluk, 3/27)