Marjorie Taylor Greene Says She Understands Fear Students Have After Own School Experience With Gunman

In a hasty mea culpa Thursday, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has faced backlash for suggesting that deadly school shootings were staged, among other controversial remarks and actions, recalled a gun incident that happened while she was in high school in 1990.

"I understand how terrible it is.... One of my schoolmates brought guns to school and took our entire school hostage, and that happened right down the hall from my classroom," Greene told her colleagues on the House floor. She was speaking of an incident that happened when she was 16 years old and in the 11th grade.

Greene graduated from South Forsyth High School in Cumming, Georgia, in 1992.

Reports from the time show that no one was injured during the school's ordeal, but 17-year-old sophomore, who was armed with a rifle, shotgun and a pistol, held two classes—53 people combined—at gunpoint.

Nine of Greene's classmates were held hostage for more than five hours, the reports said. Addis was eventually taken into custody after "becoming dizzy and giving up the siege," the Associated Press reported at the time.

Democrats and Republicans have condemned Greene for spreading unfounded conspiracy theories and incendiary social media posts targeting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats. She has also suggested that the Sandy Hook and Parkland school shootings in Connecticut and Florida were staged by anti-gun activists.

"School shootings are absolutely real," she said Thursday, without naming specific shootings she's previously questioned.

Greene posted a video to YouTube in January 2020 that shows her berating David Hogg, who became a gun control activist after surviving the Parkland shooting.

"Why are you using kids as a barrier? Do you not know how to defend yourself?" Greene says in the video, following an unresponsive Hogg on Capitol Hill. "I carry a gun on me for protection."

On Thursday, just hours before the House was set to vote on whether she should be removed from committees, Greene addressed her controversies and said she sympathizes with Hogg because of the 1990 incident at her high school.

"I know the fear that David Hogg had that day—I know the fear that these kids have," she said, though the video with Hogg still remained on Greene's YouTube page several hours after she expressed her regrets Thursday.

She also indicated that she disagrees with schools being gun-free zones. "I truly believe that children at school should never be left unprotected," she said.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy met privately with Greene late Tuesday evening before deciding that the GOP leadership would not strip Greene of her seats on the Budget Committee and the Education and Labor Committee. House Democrats are now seeking to remove her committee assignments by a majority vote on the House floor.