A Fox News anchor broke rank with many of her colleagues Sunday by openly calling for gun law reform in the wake of the Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde mass shootings.
“As we’ve said before, prayers are not enough. We have to do something. We’ve got to get the lawmakers to do something,” Arthel Neville said as she covered President Joe Biden’s visit to a memorial in Uvalde for the 19 children and two teachers killed at an elementary school last week.
’Now, the president is, you know, the commander in chief. This is happening on his watch, but he needs the help of Congress to get something done.”
Neville’s guest, Fox News contributor Griff Jenkins, argued that Biden was not uniting Democrats and Republicans on the issue and noted that Biden also failed to do so as vice president after the 2012 Sandy Hook, Connecticut, school shooting.
“Excuse me. It’s not just about the president uniting, okay?” Neville cut in.
“It’s more than that. It’s lawmakers who are stopping the unification. So let’s be clear about that. Yes, this is happening on his watch. Yes, he is responsible. Yes, he campaigned on a united America. And, yes, he needs to do something about it, but he can’t do it alone.”
Republican senators stand in the way of two bills passed by the House that would tighten gun control legislation, including one that would expand background checks for gun purchases.
The Uvalde and Buffalo shooters used AR-15 style semiautomatic assault rifles they purchased legally when they turned 18. Other countries have seen great success in banning these types of weapons to prevent mass shootings.
Republicans have been quick to blame everything from school architecture to mental health, lack of security, and even “wokeness” for the country’s mass shooting issue, refusing to acknowledge that the one variable that sets the U.S. apart from its developed peers is its astronomical number of guns and the ease with which people can obtain them.
Many Fox News hosts and pundits have offered similar explanations for the crisis. Last week, media watchdog Media Matters cut together a montage of at least 50 different solutions the conservative network’s personalities proposed in the wake of the Uvalde shooting. None of them were gun control.
Watch the exchange via Mediaite.