On March 27, 2023, Audrey Hale attacked the Covenant Presbyterian Christian School in Nashville, TN. It took only 12 minutes from when Hale shot her way through several locked, glass doors until she was killed by police. The police arrived within 10 minutes and killed her two minutes later. Hale was able, within the early minutes of the attack, to kill three students and three staff. 

Graphic: NPD report. Public Domain.

The school, as has been true with virtually every mass attack in American history, was a gun free zone.

Hale was immediately identified as trans, and from that moment, the Nashville Police and the FBI did everything they could to bury that factor. Despite numerous lawsuits and public demands for the release of Hale’s “manifesto,” authorities resisted its release. They’ve claimed copyright protections, claimed victim’s parents didn’t want it released, claimed the contents were too dangerous and would provide future shooters with vital information, anything and everything to keep it secret.

What they never denied was that there was such a manifesto. Now they have.

I’ve written extensively on this case at my home blog. Finally, the Nashville Police Department has released its report, which is available here. 

Graphic: NPD report. Public Domain.

The report claims there was no “manifesto” as such, but Hale left voluminous journals, art works, digital files and other records of her intentions. She had been planning an attack for years at various locations. She was impressed by the Columbine shooters, thinking them “gods” and hoping her attack would raise her to equally godlike status.

She legally bought the three guns she used in the attack, and while her parents and psychologist were aware of them, and of her suicidal tendencies and her raging hatred toward her father and others, she was able to repeatedly convince them she had no intention of acting on those deadly impulses.

The report provides the first apparently comprehensive timeline. It goes into great detail about Hale’s mental illness. Her first treatment began at age six, and during her final years, she was medicated and under constant treatment.

What the report is careful to avoid is any real examination of Hale’s trangenderism. It spends page after page speaking of her mental illness and her goals of being remembered and admired for her attack. It mentions her sole attraction to women and mentions that during her final days she identified as male, wore male clothing and adopted a male name. It also notes she apparently never took steps to “transition” to male and at autopsy was female but thereafter drops the subject.

In all those pages about Hale’s mental illness, her time with her therapist, interviews with family, the therapist and her few friends, there’s no mention of her trans ideation. That would violate the Trans Superiority Narrative.

While it’s possible her trans ideation played no motivational role, that’s unlikely. Such people’s lives tend to be dominated by that impulse. It’s what they think they are, and it fills their thoughts, acts and speech. A complete, non-political, investigation would fully explore that factor and comprehensively explain why it wasn’t the prime motivator. This report does not.

Even so, this case, like many others, provides useful lessons:

*If the potential killer is careful to hide their intentions, it’s virtually impossible to intercept them before they carry out an attack.

*Hindsight is always 20/20. 

*Attackers are virtually always mentally ill to some degree and are often under psychological treatment and/or medication.

*In recent attacks trans ideation has played a significant role, though the media and government do all they can to ignore or downplay that factor.

*Schools are virtually always gun free zones and killers choose them for that reason, as was true in this case.

*Once an attack begins, killers have the freedom to kill as many as they please, and seconds are an eternity.

*The police will never be present when an attack begins, and virtually always have no role in ending one. This attack was a rare exception.

*Current police policy to immediately enter, find and kill attackers works, but virtually always, they’ll be too late. Killers usually commit suicide.

*Killers usually obtain their weapons through legal means, as was the case here.

*Banning “assault weapons” or limiting magazine capacity would accomplish nothing. 

*The only effective means of deterring attacks or stopping them when and where they occur is ending gun free school zones, allowing willing teachers and staff to carry concealed weapons and widely and often publicizing those facts while never revealing how many teachers in a given school are armed or their identities. Even if a school has no armed staff it enjoys the deterrent effect.

The Nashville PD’s attempts to keep this information secret, and their careful suppression of Hale’s trans ideology give the reasonable person cause to doubt them. If and when the FBI releases its findings, Americans have more than reasonable cause to doubt them in advance.

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Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.