Tennessee Republican responds to ‘hatred’ over remarks that nothing will ‘fix’ school shooting

The GOP Tennessee congressman who said nothing will be done to “fix” gun violence following this week’s deadly school shooting in Nashville responded Thursday to the “hatred” he has received over his comments. 

“I realize their hatred towards me and my beliefs, and that’s fine,” Rep. Tim Burchett said in a Thursday interview on “Fox and Friends First.” 

Burchett’s initial comments came after a shooter killed three students and three staff members at an elementary school in Nashville. Police confronted, shot and killed the shooter. 

“It’s a horrible, horrible situation,” Burchett had told reporters. “And we’re not gonna fix it. Criminals are gonna be criminals.” 

He also said he does not see “any real role” for Congress in addressing gun violence other than to “mess things up.” 

During his Fox News interview, he said, “They come back to me and say, ‘Burchett, look what your prayers have done for us.’ The people doing the praying aren’t the ones doing the shooting.” 

“Repenting of your sins and having some sort of reform in this country seems to me to be the way we’re going to have to turn this thing around because we have some very sick, evil people doing some very vile things,” Burchett added. 

He also defended his comments during an interview with CBS News on Tuesday, saying that he does not support legislation to increase background checks as “you have criminals that are going to go around this, and that’s what they do.”