Tuesday morning, Canada experienced its deadliest shooting since 1989. The perpetrator was 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar, a transgender woman. Conservative Americans are already using this tragedy to push their narratives that stricter gun laws don’t work, and that trans people are violent and mentally ill. 

Not only are these claims lacking in any base whatsoever, they are entirely tone deaf, reprehensible and callous to the real people who were killed and traumatized in this event. 

There were eight victims, with 25 injured – some in critical condition, according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Six were killed at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School in a British Columbia town of the same name, one female educator, 39, two male students and three female students between the ages of 12 and 13. 

Additionally, Van Rootselaar’s mother, 39, and step-brother, 11, were found dead in a nearby residence. Van Rootselaar was also confirmed deceased via a self-inflicted gunshot wound at the school. 

When reports of the tragedy hit American news outlets like the New York Post, some reacted with sympathy. Others, on the contrary, decided to push conservative political views, using the deaths of eight innocent people as evidence in their argument. 

Some commenters chose to point out that this tragedy occurred despite Canada’s strict gun laws, implying America’s gun violence problem would still be just as bad with similar restrictions. 

“With their strict gun laws too? These things still happen… Sounds like more guns is probably safer option not less. Because when no one has a gun one person can do a lot of damage. Terrible these cowards target schools,” one user said. 

“Gun laws don’t work,” another user said. 

“Those strict gun laws really saving lives huh?” another said.

In 2023 alone, 17,927 Americans were murdered using firearms, according to Pew Research Center. That year, only 289 Canadians were murdered with firearms, according to Statista.

So no, strict gun laws didn’t stop this tragedy. It didn’t save the lives of those innocent people killed in Tumbler Ridge. However, this is one isolated incident compared to the 408 shootings that occurred in America in 2025, according to The Trace. Stricter gun laws don’t eradicate gun violence, but to say America doesn’t have a problem just because Canada had one shooting next to our hundreds is completely ignorant.

Another narrative conservatives love to push is that transgender people are mentally ill and violent. On Aug. 27, a transgender individual named Robin Westman killed two children and then herself at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis, prompting Republicans to consider banning trans people from buying guns. 

When conservative commenters caught wind that the shooter in Tumbler Ridge was transgender, it went from being a tragedy to just another example for their agenda. 

“The shooter is trans. Trans violence is back,” one commenter said.

“We have a mental health crisis disguised as tolerance,” another said. 

“I heard the shooter was a young man wearing a dress! That is not a female!” another said. 

“It was a crazy trans again,” another said. 

Trans people are responsible for less than .1% of shootings according to FactCheck.org but admittedly gathering data on this specific parameter is difficult. Regardless, it is clear that being transgender has nothing to do with being inherently violent. In fact, the vast majority of mass shootings are committed by cisgender men. 

This is a bigoted attack on a peaceful community, a scapegoat to avoid the real issue with American gun control. It’s blind, ignorant, hateful, transphobia behind a thin veil. Some seem more upset about the shooter’s gender identity than the death of eight completely innocent people including six children. 

Thousands of trans people have fallen victim to hate crimes, and yet they are labelled as violent and mentally ill time and time again by conservatives looking for a scapegoat– an answer– when the real reason shootings continue to happen in America at such high frequency is because lawmakers won’t do anything about it.

Even worse, children and innocent people’s deaths are used to “prove a point.” 

A note to conservatives: These children’s deaths are not proof gun control doesn’t work, nor are they proof trans people are inherently violent. What happened in Tumbler Ridge was a tragedy, and to use real deaths, real lives and real grief to back up ridiculous, hateful, ignorant political views and bigotry is inconsiderate, heartless and borderline inhuman. Shame on you.