Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Florida shooting: Fox News anchor Shepard Smith makes passionate plea to understand why school shootings happen

Mr Smith stops short of calling for reform of gun control legislation

Mythili Sampathkumar
New York
Friday 16 February 2018 22:53 GMT
Comments
Fox News' Shepard Smith issues emotional plea for reform after Florida school shooting

Fox News anchor Shepard Smith made an impassioned plea on air to figure out why school shootings happen in the US in the wake of the Parkland, Florida tragedy.

Three adults and 14 children were killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in the country's 18th mass shooting of the year.

"We put a man on the moon 50 years ago and we can't figure out why only our children are running around their schools killing each other," said an exasperated Mr Smith during a segment the right-leaning network's news programme.

He repeatedly pointed out that the phenomenon of mass school shootings is unique to the US, but stopped short of actually calling for gun control legislation reform, a topic of hot debate in the country. There are those calling for an assault weapons ban while others worry their Constitutional right to own a firearm will be taken away.

Mr Smith made note of the 25 fatal school shootings since the first high profile event in 1999 at Columbine High School in Colorado, where two students killed 12 of their peers, one teacher, and injured 21 others.

Since then, the Columbine shooting is not among the 10 deadliest shootings in the country.

“It’s astounding, isn’t it? ... We have all the resources in the world, and we can’t figure out why this happens in our country and it doesn’t happen everywhere else. Forget your political arguments, why can’t we come together as a society and say, ’We’re going to study this; we’re going to research this; we’re going to put our best and brightest together. Put them all in a room, give them funds and give them whatever they need to figure out why are our children killing each other more in the United States than anywhere else in the world?" Mr Smith implored his television audience.

He said the country is "failing our children."

The Parkland, Florida shooting is the deadliest mass shooting in which the suspect has survived, Mr Smith noted.

Nikolas Cruz, 19, was a student at the school until he was expelled for bad behaviour and police believe he has mental health issues.

Mr Smith's comments were of note given the ongoing debate on gun control legislation among members of Congress and the general public, particularly parents of children who have had to endure school shootings.

Democrats have been criticising Republicans for being the pocket of the powerful gun owner membership organisation, the National Rifle Association (NRA).

They said it has prevented the party's members from acting on gun control reform in the wake of every mass shooting in recent years - from the 2014 tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut where 20 children aged six to seven years old and six adults were killed to the Las Vegas massacre when a gunman killed 58 people and injured nearly 500 music festival attendees.

The NRA is a large contributor to Republicans in Congress, particularly House Speaker Paul Ryan, but also spent upwards of $54m in the 2016 election against political candidates who did not support the powerful gun owner membership organisation.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in