Florida Democrat slams Greene on school shootings, book bans: ‘Dead kids can’t read’

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) slammed Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) over Republican efforts to ban certain books in schools but not enact gun control legislation following the shooting at the Nashville, Tenn., school, saying “dead kids can’t read.” 

“You guys are worried about banning books — dead kids can’t read,” Moskowitz said at a House Oversight Committee hearing Wednesday, referring to numerous GOP-led state legislatures where lawmakers have proposed laws that allow for restricting certain books that students have normally read as part of their school’s curriculum. 

Moskowitz’s criticism of Greene and other Republicans came after a shooter killed three students and three staff members at a Christian private school in Nashville on Monday. Police said the shooter, 28-year-old Audrey Hale, was a former student at the school but have not yet identified a motive. 

Greene argued that the shooting was stopped because Hale was killed by a “good guy with a gun.” 

“So if you want to have a good talk about schools and protecting children, we need to talk about protecting our children the same way we protect our president, we protect our celebrities, we protect this building,” she said.

Hale was shot and killed by police about 15 minutes after authorities first received an alert about the shooting. But the six victims had already been shot. 

“Did the good guys with a gun stop six people from getting murdered? No,” Moskowitz said. 

Moskowitz said that he supported adding school resource officers following the 2018 shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., and these officers are present at every school in the state. 

He said shootings like the one in Nashville are able to happen because the 1994 assault weapons ban, which banned the use of certain semi-automatic weapons, was allowed to expire in 2004. 

“Because you guys made it easy for people who don’t deserve to have weapons, who are mentally incapable of having weapons of war, being able to buy those weapons and go into schools,” Moskowitz said.