Former D.C. Police Chief Asks Jake Tapper Why CNN Doesn’t Keep Tally of Gun Deaths Like It Does for Covid: ‘I Mean, This Is Crazy’

CNN contributor Charles Ramsey joined Jake Tapper on Thursday to discuss the most recent mass shooting. On Wednesday, a public transit worker fatally shot nine people and then himself at a rail yard in San Jose.

Ramsey, the former head of the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, suggested CNN should get more creative in the way the network covers gun violence, specifically as it pertains to the sheer number of deaths from firearms:

Just like you keep a running total of the number of people dying from Covid every day, why not keep a running total of the number of people dying from gun violence? I mean, this pressure has to be placed on our elected officials because these guys are not going to do anything. If they didn’t do anything after Sandy Hook, they’re not going to do anything after this one. But one right after the other, after the other – what is it, 17 in a week’s time or something? I mean, this is crazy. Absolutely crazy. And unless we put pressure on them, nothing’s going to happen.

Ramsey was of course referring to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Less than two weeks before Christmas in 2012, a gunman entered the school in Newtown, CT and killed 20 children and six teachers. He also fatally shot his mother earlier in the day.

Despite loud calls to pass signifiant gun control legislation at the federal level, Congress did not act.

In 2020, more than 41,000 Americans died from gun violence, including more than 23,000 who died by suicide. Moreover, firearms are the second leading cause of death among children, behind automobile accidents. Cancer is third.

Watch above via CNN.