People Are Calling Out Tomi Lahren's Misguided Tweet About The Parkland Shooting

After a mass shooting in Parkland, Florida resulted in the death of at least 17 students and teachers, Fox News commentator Tomi Lahren echoed multiple arguments that are often used in response to those who call for gun control after similar tragedies: It's too soon to call for gun control, Lahren indicated on Twitter, and such tragedies are about mental health, not guns. In the hours after sending her post, Tomi Lahren's tweet about the Parkland shooting drew criticism from Twitter users, including a number of whom appear to be students at the school that was attacked, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High. Her tweet was not well received.

Lahren's tweet read,

"Can the Left let the families grieve for even 24 hours before they push their anti-gun and anti-gunowner agenda? My goodness. This isn't about a gun it's about another lunatic. #FloridaShooting"

Soon after, a user replied, "I was hiding in a closet for 2 hours. It was about guns. You weren't there, you don't know how it felt. Guns give these disgusting people the ability to kill other human beings. This IS about guns and this is about all the people who had their life abruptly ended because of guns."

Another offered a much shorter retort, saying "It is actually about guns u witch from hell." Yet another user responded, "A gun has killed 17 of my fellow classmates. A gun has traumatized my friends. My entire school, traumatized from this tragedy. This could have been prevented. Please stfu Tomi."

The responses to Lahren's tweets were shared tens of thousands of times over.

Lahren's assertion that the Parkland shooting is about an individual "lunatic," more so than a failure to enact gun control, is a notion not too dissimilar to reactions that have come from Republicans in Washington D.C., including President Donald Trump and Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL).

However, the specific argument that people in favor of gun control are infringing upon families' need to grieve belies the fact that some of the most notable pleas for legislative action have come from family, friends and peers of the Parkland shooting's victims themselves.

A teacher at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High, Melissa Falkowski, told NBC's Today show, "As a society, you know, as Americans, we’re failing our children. We’re not keeping them safe, and Congress is failing us and the government is failing us and something has to be done."

During an interview on CNN's New Day, David Hogg, a student journalist at the high school, directed comments at politicians.

"Some of our policymakers and some people need to — they need to look in the mirror and take some action because ideas are great but without action, ideas stay ideas and children die," Hogg said.

While looking directly into the camera, he later added, "We're children. You guys are the adults. You need to take some action and play a role. Work together, come over your politics, and get something done."

Meanwhile, the superintendent of the county in which Marjory Stoneman Douglas High resides told reporters that students, among others, have been telling him that legislative solutions need to be reached in favor of gun control.

"Students have been reaching out to me, reaching out to staff, probably board members and others, saying that now, now is the time for this country to have a real conversation on sensible gun control laws in this country," the Broward County superintendent, Robert Runcie, said. "So our students are asking for that conversation. And I hope we can get it done in this generation, but if we don't, they will."

Regardless of how effective the solutions people are asking for would be in application — those debates are sure to be had among Congress members — there's one fact that will remain. Despite arguments that people should refrain from pro-gun control arguments, specifically to not infringe upon families' need to grieve, people who are closest to victims of the Parkland shooting are making the most notable calls for gun control.