Congresswoman says pornography is a root cause of school shootings

William Cummings | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Students talk gun violence on Capitol Hill Students affected by gun violence from Florida to Illinois had their voices heard on Capitol Hill Wednesday. They took part in a Democratic led House of Representatives Gun Violence Prevention Forum. (May 23)

Rep. Diane Black, a Republican candidate to be the next Tennessee governor, said Tuesday that the decline of family support systems and the rise of pornography is the "root cause" of school shootings.

"How many of you when you were in school ever had an experience where a kid came to school with a gun? . . . Never happened," Black said during a listening session with ministers at Safe Harbor of Clarksville, Tenn. The audio recording was shared by HuffPost.

"Why do we see kids being so violent? What's out there? What makes them do that? Because as a nurse, I go back to root causes."

"I think it's deterioration of the family," Black said. Citing the expression, "idle hands are the devil's workshop," Black said that without a family support structure, teens turn to the Internet, violent movies and pornography.

“Pornography, it’s available on the shelf when you walk in the grocery store. Yeah, you have to reach up to get it, but there’s pornography there," she said. "All of this is available without parental guidance. And I think that is a big part of the root cause that we see so many young people that have mental illness get caught in these places."

Black, like other conservatives and gun control opponents, was searching for explanations for recent school shootings that don't place the blame on the availability of firearms.

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"In response to mass shootings, liberals have called for banning and confiscating all guns," says Black's campaign website. "We must recognize mental health issues are the cause of mass gun violence, not the guns themselves."

After the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., the state's House of Representatives approved a measure declaring pornography a public health risk the same day the Republican-controlled chamber overwhelmingly voted to reject gun control measures demanded by survivors of the shooting.

Moms Demand Action founder Shannon Watts took issue with Black's statement saying that, "Despite all of the data and experts at her disposal" she "chooses to blame 'grocery store pornography' for school shootings. And she doesn't mean the magazines that glorify guns."

There have been at least 21 school shootings so far in 2018.