Kevin McCarthy slammed and mocked for suggesting that fewer open doors would deter school shooters
Following a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas on Tuesday, May 24 — which claimed the lives of 19 children and two teachers — Republicans scrambled to find ways to show that they were being proactive, but without promoting gun control and without saying or doing anything that might offend the National Rifle Association (NRA). House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who is hoping to replace Rep. Nancy Pelosi as House speaker if Republicans retake the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2022 midterms, tried to sound in-charge and on top of things during a May 26 appearance on Fox Business. But his recommendations — diverting COVID-19 funds and having fewer open doors at schoolhouses — are drawing both criticism and mockery on Twitter.
McCarthy told Fox Business host Sean Duffy, “Well, it’s just tragic what happened down there. We learn something new every day about how can we improve…. If the school was on lockdown, could the doors have been locked where he couldn’t have gotten in?”
The House minority leader and California Republican went on to tell Duffy — a former GOP congressman who served in the U.S. House via Wisconsin for eight years — “And remember, Sean, there are billions of dollars sitting out there, after COVID, for schools. We should redirect that money to allow the schools to use that to have one central point of entrance to protect these kids from a lot of different areas and different items going forward. But these are things we should be able to look at to solve. And we’ve really got to be focusing on mental health as well.”
\u201cAsked what his plan is to keep schools safe, Kevin McCarthy says schools should be able to repurpose Covid funds to reduce doors. #DoorControl\u201d— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar) 1653659369
McCarthy’s suggestion that federal anti-pandemic efforts be defunded comes at a time when COVID-19 is surging again. On May 19, NPR’s Selena Simmons-Duffin reported, “Cases of COVID-19 are — yet again — on the rise. The U.S. is seeing an average of more than 100,000 reported new cases across the country every day. That's nearly double the rate a month ago and four times higher than this time last year.”
The United States, according to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, recently reached a grim milestone: more than 1 million deaths from COVID-19. Worldwide, Hopkins reports, the number of COVID-19-related deaths is higher than 6.2 million. Hopkins’ figures show that just under one of out of six deaths from COVID-19 has occurred in the U.S.
Attorney Walter Shaub, who formerly headed the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, and others noted that McCarthy’s suggestion is problematic from a fire safety standpoint:
\u201c@atrupar And what happens when half of the students die in a fire?\u201d— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar) 1653659369
\u201c@atrupar Kevin McCarthy must not be familiar with the concept of \u201cfires\u201d and what an evacuation of hundreds of students and teachers through a single door would look like.\u201d— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar) 1653659369
\u201c@atrupar Reduce doors? What happens when a fire breaks out?\u201d— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar) 1653659369
Luke Zaleski, legal affairs editor at Condé Nast, noted how clumsy and awkward GOP messaging has been on the Uvalde tragedy:
\u201c@atrupar OHMYGOD even if you make schools impenetrable prisons\u2014what\u2019s to stop a shooter from attacking kids at a football game or soccer practice or the myriad other places in America like shopping malls and concerts and grocery stores where maniacs with machine guns have already killed??\u201d— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar) 1653659369
\u201c@atrupar The right-wing media and political-messaging machine is programmed to refute and destroy all commonsense proposals and points of view in the wake of horrific tragedies because sadly as a calculus it\u2019s cheaper to deny and distract for a few news cycles than enact meaningful change\u201d— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar) 1653659369
\u201c@atrupar I guess it makes a weird sick disgusting twisted sense that America\u2019s taliban party wants schools to have only one entrance. You know what else has only one entrance? Caves. We\u2019re being reduced to prehistoric dwellings for the sake of gun manufacturers and the GOP gravy train ffs\u201d— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar) 1653659369
Here are some more tweets slamming or mocking McCarthy’s suggestions:
\u201c@atrupar This is the same thing they\u2019ve been pushing on Fox. That\u2019s probably where he came up with the idea.\u201d— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar) 1653659369
\u201c@atrupar I don\u2019t get it\u2026 other countries have doors\u2026 but they don\u2019t have 10 mass shootings a week.\nSo, it\u2019s almost as if it\u2019s not about the doors.\nBut what could it be about then?!!\nThink think think\u2026 \ud83e\udd14\u201d— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar) 1653659369
\u201c@atrupar People in Europe don\u2019t own guns.\n\nSchools have plenty of doors.\n\nWhich part don\u2019t the Republicans get?\u201d— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar) 1653659369
\u201c@JoJoFromJerz @atrupar MA is the 2nd-safest state in the nation, behind Hawaii, when it comes to firearm deaths (per CDC). IT\u2019S NO ACCIDENT: MA passed bipartisan legislation to keep guns from dangerous people, bar battlefield weapons, & hold gun manufacturers accountable under consumer protection laws.\u201d— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar) 1653659369
\u201cWe should put banana peels around the entrance to every school and also trip wires that trigger huge custard pies that hit intruders in the face and a device that pulls down their pants so they hop around in a circle and also\u2026\u201d— Patton Oswalt (@Patton Oswalt) 1653577141
\u201c@atrupar Here\u2019s what McCarthy is doing:\u201d— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar) 1653659369
\u201c@atrupar @GOPLeader,\n Those doors are also for escaping. That\u2019s why there\u2019s regulations for not only how many there have to be but how big they have to be. How do you not know this?\u201d— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar) 1653659369
\u201c@jeremynewberger @atrupar California is ashamed of McCarthy.\u201d— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar) 1653659369
\u201c@atrupar >\n>\nREDUCE DOORS? EARLY PRISON TRAINING? \nTHAT IS ALL THAT IS.\nOH, and then there IS windows?\nWhat if there is a fire?\nPeople head FOR doors, NOT windows\u201d— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar) 1653659369
\u201c@atrupar This is Robb Elementary. Which building gets the door, Kevin?\u201d— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar) 1653659369
\u201c@atrupar What think-tank masterminded this \u201cdoor\u201d strategy of theirs? Although one can almost admire their ability to keep parroting it with a straight face.\u201d— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar) 1653659369
\u201c@atrupar Kevin McCarthy wants to take COVID funds which are supposed to be used to keep kids and teachers/staff from dying of a deadly pandemic to create doorless buildings in which kids and teachers/staff may die in a fire/natural disaster all to avoid admitting guns are the problem.\u201d— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar) 1653659369
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