Source: Ralf-Finn Hestoft / Getty
On the morning of September 4, a 14-year-old kid identified as Colt Gray allegedly walked into Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, and gunned down two students and two teachers. We’ve seen this before. We see it numerous times annually in America, in fact. We saw it in Nashville, Tennessee, last year and Uvalde, Texas, the year before that. And in Sandy Hook, Connecticut and everywhere, it seems, across the U.S.
Every time a high-profile school shooting happens and hits the national news cycle, we can expect another painful but often fruitless national debate about gun control between people in favor of common sense gun regulation, and those who wish to address mass shootings by talking about everything but stopping them in any kind of way that even approaches reasonable–or addresses the common denominator in these instances: the type of weapon that was used.
In other words, don’t ask Georgia GOP Rep. Mike Collins about guns.
Collins represents the northeast Atlanta Metro district where the shooting happened Wednesday, and, of course, he has released a standard, obligatory statement, saying that he and his wife are “praying for the victims, their families, and all students at Apalachee High School in Barrow County.”
Look, people already don’t respect “thoughts and prayers” responses to violent tragedies, especially by public officials, but Collins’ statement proved to be problematic beyond that, because all it did was prompt folks on social media to resurface his political ad, in which he lied about election fraud in 2020 and stated–without evidence–that “voting machines” were to blame for the non-existent election fraud. The whole time he was holding an assault rifle, which he eventually used to shoot up a trashcan for emphasis.
First things first
OK, before we continue, let’s just get a few things straight:
In a 2022 ad, he said, “Well, I understand that old Joe Biden was in town yesterday to talk about our elections. It seems that he and Kamala Harris called anyone who disagreed with the federal highjacking of this election a racist.”
First, what was Collins was talking about? What statements by Biden and Harris called election deniers racist? What was Collins was talking about?
I mean, there’s easily an argument that they were racist given that the bulk of the voting precincts Trump unsuccessfully challenged in some 60 courts of law were majority Black and Latino. So, it’s clear who the “big lie” was meant to disenfranchise.
Secondly, if anyone is calling Collins racist, it’s probably not because he’s backing Trump’s thoroughly debunked election fraud propaganda. They might call him racist because when a train derailed in Ohio last year, his first thought was to blame DEI based on zero evidence and no practical reason to even speculate that diversity initiatives had anything to do with the incident.
They might call him racist because he cheered on the racist frat bro who went viral after making monkey noises at a Black woman during a pro-Palestinian protest at the University of Mississippi earlier this year.
So, someone might call Mike Collins racist because he once suggested murdering migrants by tossing them from helicopters into the sea, but it won’t likely be because he’s another MAGA idiot repeating a MAGA lie about Trump being cheated out of a second term.
Collins continued in his gun-happy campaign ad,
“Well, Joe, I got some news for you — let me tell you what Georgia really believes. First of all, you count the legal votes that were cast in the state of Georgia, Donald Trump won this state, period. Number two: Get rid of those voting machines. Go back to paper ballots once and for all. Number there: Get rid of those ridiculous drop boxes across the state that the Democrats used to stuff the ballots and steal our elections.”
Collins went on to put his feelings before facts by offering ways to solve voter fraud that didn’t happen and chide politicians who “won’t fight for Trump” and “get to the bottom of 2020,” when a legal and fair election took place, leaving absolutely nothing to get to the bottom of.
“Well if they won’t, I will,” Collins said before lifting his rifle and shooting the trashcan, which must have been a symbol for, oh, I don’t know, any provably legal democratic process that doesn’t put Trump back in the White House.
All in all, Collins apparently hates democracy, but loves guns, so don’t ask him about regulating AR-15 automatic weapons after a mass shooting. In fact, you really don’t need to ask him, because he already answered the question two years ago when he was asked if favored any gun laws at all, including red flag laws, which permit state courts to temporarily seize firearms from people who are believed to present a threat — you know, the kind of law that could possibly prevent a mass shooting at, say, a school in Georgia by a kid who was already on the radar.
“I am absolutely opposed to red flag laws,” Collins said. “I am 100% adamant that the Second Amendment is written right. There is no changing it. We do have problems. We don’t have a gun control problem…what we have is a cultural problem where we have removed God from every facet of our life.”
There you have it, folks: Guns don’t kill people, lack of Christian indoctrination kills people.
Republicans have blamed mass shootings on everything from rap music and video games, to a “lack of God” and mental illness, to marijuana use. But they won’t entertain a practical discussion on the one thing that one can say factually and without speculation is relevant to every shooting.
Actually, I’ve written about this before:
So, whenever there’s a new mass shooting in America (*gestures widely towards always*) the issues of guns and gun access are going to come up. It would be weird if they didn’t. It would be odd if, after every mass shooting, politicians and the media discussed every aspect of the event—from mental illness to manifestos, to online activity, to the shooter’s background, to what influenced the shooter, to security, to police response—but no one ever said a peep about the weapon that was used. It would be strange because the only common denominator in every last one of these shootings—is guns. Yes, it’s a political narrative, but the effort to suppress the gun discussion after high-profile mass shootings occur is, at the very least, just as political.
Mike Collins is a politician talking politics and continuing the conservative tradition of loving guns more than they love the safety of children and the general public. It’s counterintuitive and simply shameful.
SEE MORE:
Georgia School Shooting: Cops Showed The Kind Of Restraint Unarmed Black People Rarely Receive
Georgia, Kamala Harris And A Study On Guns Showing Why Black Children And Teens Are Most At Risk
