CNN’s Scott Jennings Brawls With Colleagues Over Cause of Minnesota School Shooting: ‘The Mental Illness Was Encouraged’
CNN’s Scott Jennings brawled with his fellow panelists over the cause of the shooting at Minneapolis’s Annunciation Catholic School on Wednesday’s edition of CNN NewsNight.
After psychologist Jeff Gardere asked, “How are we going to come together as a society, as politicians, bipartisan action to be able to protect children? How long will we allow them to be collateral damage due to our ideological difference?” host Abby Phillip posed the question to Jennings.
“That’s a good question, Scott. What happens after? I mean, what should happen now to stop this from your perspective as a Republican?” she inquired.
“Sure, well I think the first question you have to ask is why did it happen? I don’t think it happened because of guns. I think it happen because somebody who was clearly suffering from severe mental illness-” he began before being interrupted by Phillip.
“Had access to weapons that would allow them to carry out a terrible shooting,” she offered.
“Well, and the mental illness was encouraged,” argued Jennings about the alleged perpetrator, 23-year-old Robin Westman, who was transgender.
“But Scott, what about people who don’t have mental illness?” interjected Gardere.
” I don’t think we can tiptoe around this issue,” pressed on the conservative commentator. “And when you look at the messages that were written, and some of the materials, and on the weapons that we’ve seen, I mean this person obviously was in a dark, dark place. So I want to know, I’m not sure the government is in that person’s life enough to know, but his parents are, his family is-”
The conversation continued:
GARDERE: But what about, Scott, what about people who don’t have mental illness? We have a huge gun violence issue here in the United States, we lead in gun violence.
JENNINGS: But the issue today is quite obviously mental illness and-
GARDERE: If you take away the mental illness, it’s always the guns.
BAKARI SELLERS: The problem is that this issue can’t be isolated in the vacuum of today. And I think to your point, mental illness is a cop out for today. Which is also why I believe that, you know, I love how the GOP believes that that’s God’s only party, right? But you have people of faith on both sides-
JENNINGS: I don’t believe that. We’re all God’s children, Bakari.
SELLERS: There are people of faith on both sides who are giving their prayers, but who also believe that action is required. Because you asked a question, you asked a question: What happens after the prayers? Well, in this country, what happens after prayers is that there’s another shooting. And the problem is, it’s the damn guns. Like, there is a mental health problem in this country, I have a CWP. In fact, I took my CWP class with Governor Nikki Haley. We sat beside each other. We went shooting together. That is not foreign in South Carolina. I believe in that amendment and that right. However, the accessibility of weapons is something we have to deal with. Mental health resources is something we have deal with. And the fact that people get killed in churches, whether or not it’s June 2015 in Charleston, South Carolina, or whether or not it’s kids in Minnesota who get killed. I mean, as a person of faith, it should shake your faith to the core that people are getting gunned down in churches.
Watch above via CNN.
