Whoopi Goldberg ripped into Republicans after several senators expressed their thoughts and prayers in response to the elementary school shooting in Texas on Tuesday.
“Why are we always at square one with this? And I swear to God if I hear another Republican senator talk about their heart being broken, I’m gonna punch somebody. I can’t take any thoughts and prayers,” said Goldberg on Wednesday’s episode of The View, Mediaite reports.
“If your thoughts and prayers were with everybody, you would have done something by now. It’s not like anybody’s not trying to make something happen. What the hell is going on?” she added.
The shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas has renewed calls for gun reform, as reported by The Associated Press. Gunman Salvador Ramos, 18, killed at least 19 children and two teachers on May 24. Ramos was killed by police after he barricaded himself inside the school, officials said.
The Texas massacre is the third-deadliest school shooting in the U.S. behind the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007 and the Sandy Hook massacre in 2012. Republicans have long been criticized for failing to support gun reform legislation due to their close ties with the National Rifle Association (NRA).
“I am sick and tired of it,” said President Biden as he read off a list of mass shootings in the United States, theGrio’s White House Correspondent April Ryan reported. “Why are we willing to live with this carnage? Why don’t we keep letting this happen? Where in God’s name is our backbone.”
During The View segment on Wednesday, co-host Joy Behar called on Republicans “to stop gaslighting me.”
“I want them to stop gaslighting me also. Stop saying it’s not guns that kill people, it’s people that kill people. It’s guns that kill people, OK? Stop saying the opposite. Stop saying that mental illness is behind this,” she said. “There’s mental illness in every country in the world, and they don’t have this problem. So stop gaslighting me on that one, and stop saying that you can have a good guy stop a bad guy with a gun.”
Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer denounced gun violence during an emotional speech on Capitol Hill Wednesday. The lawmaker, who vowed to bring a vote on gun reform to the Senate floor, condemned Republicans who he said, “care more about the NRA.”
“Please, please, damn it — put yourselves in the shoes of these parents for once,” Schumer said, the Daily Mail reported.
“Maybe that thought, putting yourself in the shoes of these parents instead of in the arms of the NRA, might let you wriggle free from the vice-like grip of the NRA.”
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