JD Vance Says School Shootings Are ‘A Fact Of Life’

In the wake of another tragic school shooting, this time in Georgia, at the hands of 14-year-old Colt Gray, GOP Vice Presidential nominee JD Vance has labeled school shootings “a fact of life.”

On Wednesday at the Apalachee High School near Winder, Gray killed two students and two teachers and injured nine others with an AR-style rifle bought for him by his father.

At a rally in Phoenix, Arizona, on Thursday, Vance argued that the U.S. needs to beef up its security to prevent such incidents, as they are a “reality” of our world. “If these psychos are going to go after our kids we’ve got to be prepared for it,” he said. “We don’t have to like the reality we live in, but it is the reality we live in. We’ve got to deal with it.”

Asked by a journalist what moves should be taken to stop school shootings, Vance declared, “I don’t like that this is a fact of life.” He continued, “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.” Vance asserted that Democrats wrongfully believe that restricting access to guns will result in fewer shootings.

Gun control advocates argue that if AR-15-style rifles like the one Gray used were banned, shootings would decrease across the country, as those rifles are a lethal favorite and have been used in mass shootings in New York, Texas, Ohio Pennsylvania and many others.

In contrast to Vance’s response, Vice President Kamala Harris responded to news of the Georgia school shooting, “It’s just outrageous that every day in our country, in the United States of America, parents have to send their children to school, worried about whether or not their child will come home alive. It’s senseless.”

Harris stressed, “We’ve got to stop it, and we have to end this epidemic of gun violence in our country once and for all. You know it doesn’t have to be this way.”

On Thursday, Gray’s father, Colin Gray, was charged with four counts of manslaughter in the incident.