"How is this still happening?": Shooting survivor hijacks Fox News feed to call for gun control

The woman, who survived the Highland Park Fourth of July parade shooting with her son, was in Nashville on vacation

By Gabriella Ferrigine

Staff Writer

Published March 27, 2023 3:51PM (EDT)

School buses with children arrive at Woodmont Baptist Church to be reunited with their families after a mass shooting at The Covenant School on March 27, 2023 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Seth Herald/Getty Images)
School buses with children arrive at Woodmont Baptist Church to be reunited with their families after a mass shooting at The Covenant School on March 27, 2023 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Seth Herald/Getty Images)

A woman interrupted a team of Fox News reporters covering Monday's school shooting in Nashville, Tennessee to call for gun safety legislation.

In the middle of a live stream canvassing the shooting at Covenant School, in which a 28-year-old female shooter allegedly claimed the lives of three children and three adults before she was killed by Metro Nashville police, Ashbey Beasley cut in to ask, "aren't you guys tired of covering this?"

"How is this still happening?" she asked. "How are our children still dying and why are we failing them? Gun violence is the number one killer of children and teens — it has overtaken cars! Assault weapons are contributing to the border crisis — we are arming cartels with our guns and our loose gun laws! And these mass shootings will continue to happen until our lawmakers step up and pass gun safety legislation!"

Beasley, who said that she was in Nashville to visit her sister-in-law, added that she had been advocating for gun reform in Washington DC for months after she and her son survived a mass shooting that took place during a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Illinois.

"I have met with over 130 lawmakers," Beasley said. 

Beasley told CNN that the situation is "unacceptable."


Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.


"Only in America can somebody survive a mass shooting and then go on vacation … and find themselves involved near another mass shooting," she said. "Only in America does this happen, where we keep seeing it again, and again, and again … This is an epidemic. Gun violence is an epidemic. And it needs to be resolved, it needs to be addressed."


By Gabriella Ferrigine

Gabriella Ferrigine is a staff writer at Salon. Originally from the Jersey Shore, she moved to New York City in 2016 to attend Columbia University, where she received her B.A. in English and M.A. in American Studies. Formerly a staff writer at NowThis News, she has an M.A. in Magazine Journalism from NYU and was previously a news fellow at Salon.

MORE FROM Gabriella Ferrigine


Related Topics ------------------------------------------

Clip Fox News Highland Park Shooting Nashville School Shooting Politics