Jonah Goldberg, the editor in chief of the Dispatch, and “The View” co-host Ana Navarro got into a shouting match about the threat of school shootings during a CNN panel Tuesday.
Goldberg criticized the notion that society should be told to fear for their children and noted that 170 out of the 54 million children in America have died in school shootings after the recent massacre inside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. He said the moral outrage is justified, but that children are more likely to die in a car accident than in a school shooting.
“Jonah, you can’t do this,” Navarro interjected. “A child’s life cannot be a statistic. You can’t tell the parents of Joaquin Oliver of Parkland [Florida], you can’t tell Fred Guttenberg.”
“I’m just saying you can’t tell people that they should be terrified,” Goldberg said.
“If it were your child, it would not be a statistic,” Navarro shouted. “It would be a tragedy.”
Goldberg argued that he has compassion for the victims, to which Navarro again said he is making them into a statistic. She argued Americans have accepted school shootings as the “status quo” and have failed to take action.
“I’m saying you shouldn’t tell the audience that this is the thing they should be so terrified and paralyzed with fear about their own kids when their own kids are more likely to die from a lot of other things,” Goldberg said. (RELATED: ‘You Keep Attacking Me’: Ana Navarro And Stephanie Grisham Share Heated Exchange Over Working For The Trump Admin)
“So they’re more likely to die of going to school and you know what happened because of that? What happened because of that is we have car seat laws that passed, we have seatbelt laws, we have speed laws,” Navarro said. “It used to be that more people died of car accidents, more kids died of pool accidents. We have fences around pools because we passed regulation. This is one of the only places where not doing anything has become status quo and something as a country we accept. And shame on us for accepting that!”
“And I’m not morally bullying you! I’ve got children I care about!” she shouted. “And you do, too.”
Goldberg replied that parents have more “control and agency” over protecting their children than fearing that a gunman will open fire in classrooms.
“So we shouldn’t do anything about it?” Navarro said.
“No, I don’t know why you keep wanting to go to that,” Goldberg said.
“Because you’re making this into a statistics conversation instead of talking about the fact that there are children being buried in coffins adorned with Superman decals,” she said.
Goldberg said one child killed is “too many” and that he is “morally outraged” by the 19 children who died in Uvalde. He then clarified that using moral outrage to “paralyze” parents with fear is a “disservice.”
“I’m not telling them they should be paralyzed with fear,” Navarro said. “I’m saying they should pick up the phone and call their senators and tell them it has been 10 years since Sandy Hook and that we haven’t done anything is a national shame. So, paralyzed with fear and paralyzed with acceptance and resignation is what we’ve been for the last 10 years. And it’s enough of that. No more paralysis. Get your asses in gear and call your senators.”
In 2012, 20-year-old gunman Adam Lanza opened fire and killed 20 students and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
CNN chief national affairs analyst Kasie Hunt then argued that people should not live in fear of a shooting happening to their child, but they are because of the incident in Uvalde. She then claimed it is more difficult to buy a car than an AR-15 and said guns should be more regulated to prevent shootings.