On March 27, 2023, a shooter walked into The Covenant School in Nashville and killed six people. Three of them were nine years old.

The next day, reporters asked Tim Burchett — who represents Tennessee's 2nd District, in the same state — what Congress would do about it.

"It's a horrible, horrible situation, and we're not going to fix it. Criminals are gonna be criminals."

A reporter followed up. Were there steps lawmakers could take to protect children — children like his own daughter?

"Well, we homeschool her."

That exchange was reported by NBC News on March 29, 2023.

He doubled down the next day

This wasn't a stray remark in a hallway scrum that he later walked back. He was asked about it again and stood behind it:

"If you want to legislate evil, it's just not going to happen. We need a real revival in this country. Let's call on our Christian ministers and our people of faith."

"If you think Washington is going to fix this problem, you're wrong. They're not going to fix this problem. They are the problem."

Asked whether it bothered him that other countries don't have America's level of gun violence, he answered:

"Other countries don't have our freedom either. It's the United States of America."

That is his stated position: this is not a thing government can address, and anyone who thinks otherwise misunderstands the nature of evil.

Except he had already voted on it

Here is the problem with "we're not going to fix it." Nine months before Covenant, Congress tried — and Burchett voted no.

After Uvalde, where 19 children and two teachers were killed, Congress passed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act — the first federal gun legislation in nearly 30 years. As NBC noted at the time, it was "the first movement on the issue in years."

The House cleared it on June 24, 2022 by 234-193. Burchett voted Nay. (The roll call is filed under S. 2938's original title, a Florida courthouse naming bill — the Senate used it as the legislative vehicle.)

Two days earlier, the House had passed the Active Shooter Alert Act — a bill to build an emergency alert system, like an Amber Alert, so people near an active shooting get warned. It didn't restrict a single firearm. Burchett voted Nay on that too.

So "we're not going to fix it" is not a description of what Congress is capable of. It's a description of how he votes.

And he does legislate — when he wants to

The clearest test of whether Burchett actually believes Washington can't protect people arrived in July 2026.

He introduced H.R. 9800, the Protection Against Mass Surveillance Act, which would bar federal agencies from buying, operating or accessing automated license-plate readers like Flock Safety cameras, require them to delete collected data within 30 days, and block that data from being used as evidence.

His pitch, to WVLT:

"Americans should never choose between safety and liberty."

"We gotta ban these dadgum things."

There is a real civil-liberties argument for that bill. That isn't the point. The point is the contrast in what he thinks legislation can accomplish.

A camera on a pole in Knoxville: fixable by federal statute, urgently, with a bill of his own authorship.

A shooter in an elementary school in his own state: "we're not going to fix it," "if you want to legislate evil, it's just not going to happen," call a minister.

He is not a man who believes Congress is powerless. He is a man who has decided which dangers are worth using that power on.

What it costs Tennessee

Tennessee has the 9th highest gun death rate in the country — about 19.8 per 100,000 people, roughly 55% above the national average. Around 1,400 Tennesseans die from gun violence every year. The Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions keeps the state's numbers here.

Fourteen hundred a year is not an act of God. It is a number that other states, with other laws, do not have.

Burchett's answer to those families is that the government they pay for isn't going to help, and that if they're worried about their own kids they can do what he did.

Most families in Tennessee's 2nd District cannot homeschool their children. They have jobs. That is the whole reason public schools exist. "We homeschool her" is not policy advice — it's a member of Congress explaining that he has personally opted out of a risk he won't lift a finger to reduce for anyone else.

He won't hear it in person, either

In April 2025, about 250 people organized their own town hall in downtown Knoxville to put questions to Burchett. He didn't attend. Someone set up cardboard cutouts of him holding a sign: "Sorry ... I'm out of the office today."

Tennessee is not short of parents who would like five minutes with him about this.

We deserve better.

Source

Ryan Nobles, Kyle Stewart, Scott Wong and Rose Horowitch, "Tennessee Rep. Burchett says of school shootings: 'We're not gonna fix it,'" NBC News, March 29, 2023. Roll calls from the Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House. Photo: NBC News.