Tennessee Republican Rep. Diane Black has a theory that the availability of pornography and violent entertainment contributes to gun violence in schools.

The availability of explicit sexual content leads to mental and societal breakdown, Black told a group of ministers in Tennessee on May 23, according to audio recording released by the Huffington Post.

“Why do we see kids being so violent? What’s out there? What makes them do that?” Black said. “Because as a nurse, I go back to root causes.”

The root cause is the “deterioration of the family,” Black said, which causes young people to seek other methods of fulfillment, often online from violent entertainment and pornography.

Children are desensitized to violence in movies “where people are getting blown up,” Black said.

“Pornography, it’s available, it’s available on the shelf when you walk in the grocery store,” Black said. “Yeah, you have to reach up to get it, but there’s pornography there. All of this is available without parental guidance. And I think that is a big part of the root cause.”

In recent school shootings, the family and friends of the perpetrators were able to pinpoint a time when there was a change in the alleged shooter’s behavior. She also pointed to the fact that Dimitrios Pagourtzis, the suspect in the recent Sante Fe High School shooting, had violated school policy by wearing a trench coat to school before the shooting, perhaps as an homage to the Columbine shooters.

“Those were all signs that something was going on,” Black said. “I believe mental illness is something we’ve got to address. We’ve got to address the family,” Black said.

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