“The View” co-hosts raged about AR-15s while discussing the Monday shooting at a private Christian school in Nashville, Tennessee.
Six people — three nine-year-olds and three adults — died after a suspect, later identified by police as transgender 28-year-old Audrey Hale, snuck into The Covenant School and opened fire. The Nashville Police Department encountered and fatally shot Hale at the scene before 11 a.m. Hale was reportedly carrying at least two assault-style weapons and a handgun.
The co-hosts accused Republicans of caring more about money than the safety of children, and lashed out at Americans who own AR-15s. Co-host Whoopi Goldberg argued the public needs to know the amount and the type of firearms every gun owner has in their possession.
“You want to have 70, 11 guns, we need to know that! We need to know what you got because you are now being painted with the same swab as all of the people who are killing people left and right with ‘legal guns!'” Goldberg said. “We need to know what you got!”
“I don’t know why you need an AR-15,” co-host Sunny Hostin said. “AR-15s are weapons of mass destruction.”
“They’re weapons of war!” co-host Joy Behar said. “Why does any person have to have a weapon of war?”
Hostin and Goldberg then argued a person cannot hunt with an AR-15, though some hunters choose to use the weapon. Co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin said the majority of Americans would support stricter background checks and protocols to own an AR-15, and argued there needs to be a balance of respecting the right to gun ownership and ensuring firearm safety. (RELATED: CNN Guest Calls For Mass Confiscation After Nashville School Shooting)
“Why own it at all?” Hostin interjected, speaking about AR-15s.
“We will be talking about this issue forever if we start from a place of ‘We have to get all guns off the street,’ because that will never happen in America,” Griffin said.
“No, it’s not ‘Get all guns off the street,’ it’s ‘Do it!’ There are certain guns — I don’t have a tank! I can’t go and buy a tank,” Goldberg interjected. “I can’t buy any of those. AR-15s have no use in normal, daily life. None! And, again, I don’t say ‘Give up all your guns.’ I don’t know why you have to have 50 or 11 of them, but maybe you do, and I want to know that you got them. Because I want to be sure that I’m aware of what’s going on in my periphery. And if you’re not willing to do that, then we all have a problem!”
She then repeated the argument that increased security in schools is ineffective in stopping school shootings, and called on lawmakers and gun owners to show concern about schoolchildren.
The White House and some liberals targeted Republicans for not supporting an “assault weapons ban,” which would include banning AR-15s.