OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
“The Five” co-host Greg Gutfeld became frustrated with the panel’s liberal colleague on Tuesday during a discussion about guns and gun control in the wake of the Nashville Christian school shooting.
“I agree with Greg about the reporting issue. I guess we are part of the problem right now that we’re doing that,” said co-host Jessica Tarlov, who was responding to a point Gutfeld had made earlier about it being too early to talk authoritatively about the incident since all the facts and details were not yet known.
“When you say, ‘I don’t know if the shooter had a mental problem,’ she did,” Tarlov noted further, another reference to a comment that was made earlier in the segment.
“You don’t kill children. You don’t kill people that you don’t know – or maybe she didn’t know them, maybe they were there when she was in school – if you don’t have a mental illness problem,” she noted further.
“I would also add that Republicans are incessantly talking about preserving our children’s youth. This is a precious time in life. That’s why we can’t have certain books on their shelves, why we can’t have drag queen story hour, whatever it is,” she continued.
“If you’re telling me that you don’t think that having armed guards all over our preschools isn’t robbing children of their youth. I don’t know what to tell you. That is more traumatizing than any line that I have read in any book,” she claimed.
“More traumatizing than this?” co-host Jesse Watters interjected.
“But it doesn’t, it hasn’t even been proven out that that is the solution to this. This is also a very different case. It is a private school. It’s a religious school. As Katie [Pavlich] mentioned here, we have a biological female shooter. Less than 1% of the shootings that go on in this country are women that carry them out,” Tarlov responded, adding:
I want more facts on it. But if these guns, the two guns, I think one was illegal, but two gained legally and then I hear all the time, we just need the laws that are on the books. No, the laws were not good enough if this person could legally get those weapons. We know the laws are not good enough.
“We don’t know what the facts are. We don’t know,” interrupted co-host Jeanine Pirro.
“This is why shouldn’t be talking about this,” Gutfeld interjected, cutting the others off.
“What?” Pirro asked from across the table.
“This is such a joke. All we do is speculate about this stuff. We don’t know anything about how she got the guns,” Gutfeld responded, growing visibly upset.
“I just said that! I just said, we don’t know,” fired back Pirro.
“I’m talking to her. Control yourself,” Gutfeld said, referring to Tarlov as he rolled his eyes.
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“But here’s the other issue. I mean, the bottom line is you need to protect them. Close, lock the damn door. Period,” Pirro noted further.
“All right. We’re going to monitor the situation in Nashville and bring you any updates as we get them. More on The Five up next,” said Watters, jumping back in to take the segment to commercial.
On Tuesday, Nashville police released stunning bodycam footage of officers engaging and killing suspected shooter Audrey Hale, 28, who attended the school in her youth.
“Monday’s shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, unfolded over about 14 minutes, according to police, and spanned two floors of the private Christian elementary school. Metropolitan Nashville Police released surveillance video showing the moment the shooter — who authorities said had three firearms — arrived at the school, shot through glass doors and climbed through to get inside. The video goes on to show the suspect walking through the hallways, pointing an assault style weapon,” CNN reported.
“Police got the first call about an active shooter inside Covenant school at 10:13 a.m. local time, police spokesperson Don Aaron said, and rushed to the scene. The first five responding officers heard gunfire coming from the second floor,” the outlet added. “Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake commended the five officers for their quick response.”
Officers quickly went upstairs and confronted the shooter, who “had been firing through a window at arriving police cars,” the department said in a news release. Two officers then opened fire, killing the shooter at 10:27 a.m. local time, Aaron added.
