Parents of children at the Covenant School, where six individuals were murdered by a transgender-identified shooter earlier this year, launched a nonprofit and a political advocacy group which appears poised to call for red flag laws and other gun control measures.
The Covenant School, which is affiliated with Covenant Presbyterian Church in Nashville, Tennessee, made national headlines four months ago after the shooter, an alumna of the Covenant School and a woman who claimed identity as a man, murdered three nine-year-old children and three adult staff members. The official news outlet for the Presbyterian Church in America, a broadly conservative denomination with which Covenant Presbyterian Church is associated, issued a press release on Wednesday announcing the initiatives.
Covenant Families for Brighter Tomorrows is a 501(c)(3) entity which will “provide education around the impact and prevention of school shootings and improve mental health support,” according to the release, while Covenant Families Action Fund is a 501(c)(4) entity which will “drive meaningful legislative change to ensure the safety of our children and staff in schools.”
Social media accounts belonging to Sarah Shoop Neumann, Becky Hansen, and Melissa Alexander, the three parents quoted in the press release, contain several posts in favor of a red flag law recently endorsed by Tennessee Republican Governor Bill Lee, a policy which would permit the state to confiscate firearms for those deemed a risk to themselves or others. Critics of red flag laws note that the statutes deprive citizens of gun rights without due process and without the ability to defend themselves in court.
Neumann leveraged the emotional power of the shooting to criticize lawmakers she saw as insufficiently responding to the murders, openly endorse the red flag law as a “common sense gun safety” measure, and lambast the Tennessee House Republican Caucus for clarifying that red flag laws would be a “non-starter” since they violate Second Amendment liberties. Neumann also retweeted a letter written by Brent Leatherwood, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberties Commission, in support of the red flag law.
Leatherwood, a fellow Covenant School parent, has been criticized for employing Southern Baptist institutions to advance interests contrary to the denomination’s conservative churches. One source familiar with the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission speculated to The Sentinel that Leatherwood was one of the unnamed Covenant School parents reported to be heavily involved in delaying the public release of the transgender-identified shooter’s manifesto. The Sentinel previously contacted the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission to ask about the claim but has not received a response.
Hansen meanwhile shared a post from the Tennessee Senate Democrats asserting that there is support for gun control “even from MAGA Republicans and strong supporters of the NRA,” as well as footage of the Tennessee Titans cheerleaders marching in a recent “pride month” parade. Her husband said in another post that the nation should “talk about why the right to own a gun means supporting others with the unfettered ability to kill others.”
Alexander lauded the three Democratic lawmakers who disrupted the Tennessee House to call for gun control after the shooting. “I am a Republican and heartbroken by the lack of support and compassion by my representatives,” she said. “Yet, these three Democrats spoke up for my children.”
Surveys show that red flag laws are unpopular among the vast majority of Republicans and many independents, despite the claims from the Covenant School parents. The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission has asserted that the Tennessee gun reform policy differs from a red flag law since only police can “file a petition before the court to have firearms confiscated” and an individual can “only be dispossessed of the firearms” if he or she finishes a court process.
