Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) called for tighter school security in the wake of this week’s school shooting in Georgia.
“If these psychos are going to go after our kids, we’ve got to be prepared for it,” Vance said at a rally in Phoenix. “We don’t have to like the reality that we live in, but it is the reality we live in. We’ve got to deal with it.”
His remarks came in response to a reporter’s question about what can be done to stop school shootings. The Ohio Republican argued that restricted access to guns will not prevent shootings, according to The Associated Press.
“I don’t like that this is a fact of life,” Vance said, the AP reported. “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.”
The comments came one day after a shooting occurred at Apalachee High School in Winder, Ga., killing four people and injuring several more on Wednesday. Colt Gray, the 14-year-old suspect, is charged with four counts of felony murder.
Vance described the shooting as an “awful tragedy” and called for prayers for the families in Winder. He called the alleged shooter “an absolute barbarian.”
Vance’s campaign also said some of the media took his remarks out of context.
The Associated Press, in a now-deleted tweet, wrote that “JD Vance says school shootings are a ‘fact of life,’ calls for better security.” In an updated headline for its story and tweet, the AP said “Vance says he laments that school shootings are a ‘fact of life’ and calls for better security.”
“This is yet another case of the fake news media brazenly lying about a Republican politician. Senator Vance said exactly the opposite of what the Associated Press claimed,” Vance spokesperson William Martin said in a statement to The Hill early Friday.
Vice President Harris, the official Democratic presidential nominee, went off-script Wednesday to address the shooting, calling it a “senseless tragedy.” Harris said the country must end its gun violence epidemic “once and for all.”
The Harris campaign jumped on the opportunity to use Vance’s remarks against him, as part of the larger back-and-forth in the presidential campaign.
“Yesterday, Vice President Harris said ‘it doesn’t have to be this way’ in response to another senseless school shooting,” Harris campaign spokesperson Ammar Moussa said in a statement late Thursday. “Donald Trump and JD Vance think school shootings are a ‘fact of life’ and ‘we have to get over it.’”
“Vice President Harris and Governor Walz know we can take action to keep our children safe and keep guns out of the hands of criminals,” Moussa added. “Donald Trump and JD Vance will always choose the NRA and gun lobby over our children. That is the choice in this election.”.
The Vance campaign responded to the Harris campaign’s statement and the vice president’s remarks, criticizing her stance on firearm issues and school safety.
“Meanwhile, Kamala Harris has called for all police officers to be removed from schools, putting children all over America at risk. It’s yet another example of how Kamala Harris’s weak, failed, and dangerously liberal agenda makes her unfit for office,” Martin said in his statement.
Harris leads the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention and has advocated for stronger gun control.
The Associated Press contributed.
Updated at 10:49 a.m. ET