Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) appeared on MSNBC following the Catholic school shooting in Minnesota, attributing the tragedy to Republicans and saying the now-deceased gunman had used an “automatic rifle.”
“All the work we’ve done to ban these automatic rifles, and do something when it comes to background checks and everything. We keep getting thwarted. We were able to pass a limited measure…but not enough to stop something like this. It makes you think about that,” she said.
In fact, one of the weapons used by the suspect, who later killed himself, was a semi-automatic rifle, along with a shotgun and a handgun, according to police and media reports.
Local authorities said two children were killed and more than a dozen others injured in the shooting, which occurred during Mass at Annunciation Catholic School in Minnesota. Fox News reported that the shooter was a man in his early 20s dressed in black.
The attack came during the first week of classes at the school. The shooter went by two names, Robin Westman and Robert Westman. “The FBI is investigating this shooting as an act of domestic terrorism and hate crime targeting Catholics,” FBI Director Kash Patel wrote on social media.
“During the mass, a gunman approached on the outside of the side of the building and began firing a rifle through the church windows towards the children sitting in the pews at the mass. Shooting through the windows, he struck children and worshipers that were inside the building,” Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara.
“The shooter was armed with a rifle, a shotgun, and a pistol. This was a deliberate act of violence against innocent children and other people worshiping. The sheer cruelty and cowardice of firing into a church full of children is absolutely incomprehensible,” he added.
“Two young children, ages eight and 10, were killed where they sat in the pews. Their parents have been notified. Seventeen other people were injured, 14 of them being children,” O’Hara continued, adding that “the coward who fired these shots ultimately took his own life in the rear of the church.”
