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Two children were killed and 17 others were injured when a shooter opened fire during a morning Mass for a Minneapolis Catholic school, with the nation subsequently reeling from the tragedy and reigniting debate about ways to prevent such horror in the future.
“This kind of violence is very recent. It’s a new thing in human history,” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said during a Thursday morning interview on “Fox & Friends.” “There was no time in the past when people would walk into a church or a classroom and start shooting people. And it’s not really happening in other countries. It’s happening here, and we need to look at all of the potential culprits that might be contributing to that.”
The FBI is investigating the shooting, which FBI Director Kash Patel called “an act of domestic terrorism and hate crime targeting Catholics,” while Trump administration officials are offering prayers and looking at ways to address the nation’s ongoing mental health crisis.
John Lott, the founder and president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, told Fox News Digital about some of the top variables involved in such shootings, including killers seeking to gain as much media attention as possible by targeting areas where people are unarmed.
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“You read these manifestos and diaries. Over and over again, these guys know that they’re going to commit suicide,” Lott said. “They know or they believe they’re going to die. People have always wanted to commit suicide, but someplace along the line, people who felt unappreciated, who didn’t think people knew what a great person they were, or whatever, realized they could get national and international attention by killing lots of people.”
The Minneapolis shooter committed suicide during the Wednesday morning rampage.
“They know if they go to a place where their victims are defenseless, they’re going to be able to go and kill more people and get more media attention,” Lott said. “And so the thing to stop these attacks is to take away this notoriety that they can get.”
Lott has long called for the obliteration of “gun-free zones,” and said the Trump administration has the opportunity to “harden” schools by removing such zones, as well as the signs designating them, which essentially advertise that no one inside a facility has a firearm.
Instead, Lott said, schools and other common “soft targets” should install signs noting that select teachers and staff are armed with concealed weapons to protect students and others.
Wednesday’s shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church unfolded as young students of the church’s parochial school attended mass during their first week back in classrooms. The tragedy ultimately left two children, aged 8 and 10, dead and 17 other students and people injured.
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Police identified the shooter as 23-year-old Robin Westman, who allegedly used a trio of legally purchased firearms, including a rifle, a pistol and a shotgun, to carry out the devastation.
Court records previously reported by Fox News show that a Minneapolis juvenile named Robert Westman acquired a legal name change to Robin Westman in 2019. Patel confirmed that the shooter was born Robert and later identified as Robin.
Local police additionally reported they were aware the shooter released a manifesto on YouTube, though the video has been taken down and is now under investigation.
The White House held a Thursday press conference during which press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Kennedy’s Health and Human Services was investigating potential prescription drug links to mass tragedies, and that the health arm of the federal government had an ongoing focus on the nation’s mental health woes.
“I know the Secretary of Health and Human Services this morning said that HHS is investigating perhaps links between some of these drugs and these prescription drugs that some of these minors may be taking in an increase in violence,” Leavitt said. “And obviously, we have mental health problems in this country that this administration and Secretary Kennedy will continue to speak out about and the work that we’re doing to solve it.”
In response to Kennedy floating a potential tie between shootings and certain prescription intake, senior advisor to America First Legal Ian Prior told Fox Digital that the conservative group uncovered FDA “documents showing the government knew puberty blockers increase depression and suicidal thoughts.”
“Yet they still pushed them on vulnerable kids. We are flooding children with drugs that destabilize their minds— from puberty blockers to SSRIs — and then acting surprised when tragic violence erupts,” he said. “Instead of protecting kids, federal regulators have created a generation struggling with instability that endangers both themselves and the public. If we want to end mass shootings, we must confront these underlying causes head-on.”
Heritage Foundation senior legal fellow Amy Swearer told Fox News Digital that the Trump administration should end the U.S.’s historic and “absurd focus” on gun control in reaction to school shootings as it maps out next steps to address such tragedies.
“Focusing on this through the lens of gun control is generally not conducive to actually solving any problems here, especially when we’re talking about school shooters in particular,” Swearer said.
“Generally, when we see school shooters, you either have individuals who are underage, who can’t legally buy guns, who are taking them from parents or other family members,” she continued. “Or you’re dealing with individuals like we saw in Minneapolis, who fall into the broader category of adult mass public shooters, who unfortunately, the problem isn’t that they were prohibited people who are circumventing our laws. … It’s that they were mentally unstable, showed signs of being a danger to themselves or others, but hadn’t yet committed a disqualifying felony or misdemeanor offense.”
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Democratic lawmakers have come out in force to voice support for additional gun control following the shooting while denouncing “gun violence” and “weapons of war” on U.S. streets.
“I’m horrified by the shooting at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis and closely monitoring the situation. I’m thankful for the first responders on the scene,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., wrote on X. “Students and teachers should not be putting their lives on the line just by going back to school. We must do more to stop gun violence in America.”
“Praying for the children, families and first responders during this moment of terror and unimaginable grief,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said of the tragedy. “Weapons of war have no place in our neighborhoods, streets or schools.”
Like Lott, Swearer said “soft targets” such as gun-free school zones, are frequently preyed upon by mass shooters as criminals can carry out deadlier attacks without resistance from their victims. She called for schools and other “soft targets” to at least have the option to protect themselves.
“There is a general rule: hard targets protect people,” she said.
Lott added that a killer’s “goals” must be taken from them if mass shooting tragedies are ever to significantly decrease.
“The way you take away their goal is having somebody there quickly, or they believe somebody’s there quickly to be able to stop them before they can kill many people,” he said. “I forced myself to read their diaries and manifestos, and time after time after time they say, ‘If I can only kill more people than such and such did, I can get even more media attention. I can get my name in the history books.’”
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