We’re still learning more about Audrey Hale, the 28-year-old woman who on Monday shot her way into a private Christian elementary school in Nashville that she once attended and murdered six, including three children, before being located on the second floor and taken out by Metro Nashville police officers not long after.
According to news reports, investigators are reading and analyzing an alleged “manifesto” left by Hale as they look for a motive and explore the possibility that the deadly rampage was motivated in any way by Hale’s LGBTQ status.
On social media profiles, Hale listed herself as “he/him.”
Speculation has been rampant among talking heads and elected officials alike, with some on the left (and in the media, of course) blaming the right and their respect for the Second Amendment and supposed “hate” for LGBTQ people for Hale’s actions, with some on the right, including Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), suggesting Hale’s heinous actions constitute a “hate crime”:
In a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Hawley described Audrey Hale’s rampage through the Tennessee school that left three adults and three 9-year-old children dead as a “targeted” assault “against Christians” and called for “the full resources of the federal government” to be deployed to determine why the 28-year-old former student carried out the heinous crime.
“It is commonplace to call such horrors ‘senseless violence.’ But properly speaking, that is false,” Hawley writes. “Police report that the attack here was ‘targeted’ — targeted, that is, against Christians.”
“I urge you to immediately open an investigation into this shooting as a federal hate crime. The full resources of the federal government must be brought to bear to determine how this crime occurred, and who may have influenced the deranged shooter to carry out these horrific crimes. Hate that leads to violence must be condemned. And hate crimes must be prosecuted,” the Missouri Republican added.
Here’s the full letter:
I am calling on FBI Director Wray and Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas to open a federal hate crime investigation into the massacre in Nashville – targeting a Christian school 👇 pic.twitter.com/IvzrJUY2ZH
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) March 28, 2023
President Joe Biden was asked about Hawley’s allegation that Hale’s shooting rampage equated to a federal hate crime. As he did during a bizarre Monday speech after the massacre, Biden appropriately told a “joke” before stating that he had “no idea” if what Hawley claimed was true:
Asked to respond to GOP Senator Josh Hawley’s claim he believes Christians were targeted in Monday’s school shooting in Nashville, TN, Biden tells reporters at the White House, “Well, I probably don’t then,” before clarifying, “No, I’m joking– I have no idea.” pic.twitter.com/7BfVbdbXmN
— DJ Judd (@DJJudd) March 28, 2023
Hawley first reacted by tweeting “what a disgrace” before correctly pointing out that there is “nothing remotely funny about hate crimes”:
There’s nothing remotely funny about hate crimes https://t.co/ubRLPciKn0
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) March 28, 2023
And normally Biden would agree – if any of the Democrat special interest groups had been targeted.
Just imagine for half a second how the media and Democrats would react if this was Trump cracking jokes after a mass shooting at an LGBTQ club. Biden’s done it multiple times over the last two days, and it’s not just inappropriate but it’s also extraordinarily unbecoming of the supposed leader of the free world.
This is one of those times when a handler clearly should have intervened, but as I understand it, he’s been pulling loose from his handlers in recent days and unfortunately, these types of comments are the result.
Related: WaPo Ripped for ‘Ugly Activism’ After Tying Andy Ogles to Nashville Shooting Because He Owns Guns
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