Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., conveyed a real sense of hopelessness over federal legislation that can stop school shootings during an address he gave to community leaders in Danville, Ky.
“I don’t think at the federal level there’s much that we can do other than appropriate funds,” McConnell said on Tuesday, according to a report in the Lexington Herald-Leader.
In light of several school shootings that have taken place in the past year, Congress has faced immense pressure to pass some form of gun control. McConnell, who endorses increased school security as a means of protection, has not expressed support of a bill that would do so. Instead, he has thrown his support toward a more stringent background check system, asking for unanimous consent on a bill that would have improved reporting compliance back in March. That initiative, however, was shut down by conservatives worried by the idea of increasing oversight.
In Kentucky, where two students were killed in a January shooting, McConnell compared public school security to that found in airports, saying ‘“this might be something that we could achieve, but I don’t think we could do that from Washington.” McConnell added that similar laws will be “basically a local decision,” an observation he decried as “a darn shame.”
In this year alone, 23 school shootings in which someone was hurt or killed have taken place across the nation. In the wake of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. a widespread movement led by the surviving students who were pressing for gun control legislation swept through the country. In an NPR poll conducted after the shooting, 75 percent of respondents said they supported the idea of increased control.
