Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance told rallygoers in Arizona on Thursday he lamented that school shootings are a “fact of life” and officials need to bolster security to prevent violence such as the deadly shooting this week at a northeast Georgia high school.
“If these psychos are going to go after our kids, we’ve got to be prepared for it,” Vance said. “We don’t have to like the reality that we live in. But it is the reality that we live in. We’ve got to deal with it.”
It spurred backlash from supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris, who brought up Wednesday’s shooting at Apalachee High School in Barrow County to renew calls for gun restrictions, enhanced background checks and more security.
The Harris campaign and its allies noted former President Donald Trump responded to a school shooting in Iowa earlier this year by saying: “It’s just horrible, so surprising to see it here. But have to get over it, we have to move forward.”
“Donald Trump and JD Vance will always choose the (National Rifle Association) and gun lobby over our children. That is the choice in this election,” Harris-Walz 2024 campaign spokesperson Ammar Moussa said.
Added Alex Floyd of the Democratic National Committee: “As Trump and Vance put the gun lobby ahead of the American people, voters are ready to reject their dangerous and out-of-touch agenda in November.”
William Martin, a spokesperson for Vance, criticized the news media for implying he was dismissing school shootings, telling Fox News “this is yet another case of the fake news media brazenly lying about a Republican politician.”
At the Arizona rally, Vance described the Georgia shooting as an “awful tragedy” committed by an “absolute barbarian.”
“I don’t like that this is a fact of life,” Vance said. “But if you are a psycho and you want to make headlines, you realize that our schools are soft targets. And we have got to bolster security at our schools. We’ve got to bolster security so if a psycho wants to walk through the front door and kill a bunch of children they’re not able.”
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