In response to backlash for her 2019 comments to a Parkland, Florida school shooting survivor, including being removed from the House Education and Labor Committee, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene says she understands the fear of those situations.
Friday morning, the congresswoman recounted a situation while she was in high school in 1990 when an armed student held classmates hostage for several hours.
She said a classmate had brought two guns to school one day, because they were mad at other classmates, and at one point got out one of the guns. She said a teacher knocked over the students, but the student had another gun and was able to hold an unknown number of people hostage for about five hours.
“There was no good guy with a gun to stop it,” Greene told reporters Friday, pointing out her school was a gun-free school zone and that none of the teachers or staff had a gun.
Greene was enrolled at the school, but was not among the students held hostage that day, according to a spokeswoman for Forsyth County Schools, reports the Atlanta Journal Constitution.Two classrooms of students were held hostage while others in the school were evacuated.
Greene cited the 1990 incident to explain her views on allowing guns at school, and to point out she had a different viewpoint to share with the school shooting survivor, David Hogg. Greene shared video of the 2019 interaction with Hogg to YouTube at the end of last month.
Greene’s comments come a day after her colleagues in the House voted to remove her from two committees, because of comments, video and endorsements she has made on social media.
Before the vote Thursday, Greene stood on the floor of the House and told her colleagues she regretted some of her “words of the past.”
She did not, however, explicitly apologize for any racist or violent rhetoric.
"I was allowed to believe things that weren't true,” said Greene Thursday. “And I would ask questions, questions about them and talk about them. And that is absolutely what I regret, because if it weren't for the Facebook posts and comments that I liked in 2018, I wouldn't be standing here today. And you couldn't point a finger and accused me of anything wrong."
In the past, the Georgia representative has embraced far-right conspiracy theories, like suggestions that school shootings were staged. She’s also endorsed calls for violence against Democrats.
During her press conference Friday, which touched on several topics, the congresswoman said she was “fine” with being removed from the committees.
“I have a lot of free time on my hands, and I can talk to people all over this country,” she said, adding, “I’m going to be holding the Republican Party accountable and pushing them to the right.”
She also reaffirmed her support of former President Donald Trump, saying the Republican Party “is his, it doesn’t belong to anyone else.”
