Georgia shooting brings gun violence policy into focus in 2024 race
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Students and community members gather at a makeshift memorial outside of Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, on Thursday. Photo: Jessica McGowan/Getty Images
This week's mass shooting at a Georgia high school brought the issue of gun violence back to the fore ahead of November's 2024 presidential election.
The big picture: Vice President Kamala Harris and Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) made clear in comments Thursday they have very different ideas in how to respond to gun violence in the wake of the Apalachee High School shooting that killed four people and injured nine others.
Driving the news: A CNN reporter asked Vance at a Phoenix, Arizona, event what his policies were on ending school shootings after this week's massacre, which saw a 14-year-old student charged with four counts of felony murder and his father facing charges including second-degree murder.
- Former President Trump's running mate said it was an "awful tragedy" and called for the bolstering of security in schools.
- "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 we live in. We've got to deal with it," he added.
"I don't like that this is a fact of life, 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."
Meanwhile, Trump responded to a question from Fox News host Sean Hannity about the Georgia shooting during a Fox News town hall on Wednesday by saying: "It's a sick and angry world for a lot of reasons and we're going to make it better, and we're going to heal our world."
What they're saying "School shootings are not just a fact of life," Harris wrote on social media Thursday evening. "It doesn't have to be this way. We can take action to protect our children — and we will."
- Harris-Walz campaign spokesperson Ammar Moussa also responded to Vance's remarks in a post to X, saying that the Democratic presidential candidate and running mate Tim 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 N.R.A. and gun lobby over our children. That is the choice in this election."
Zoom out: Harris leads the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention and has backed gun control measures.
- The Democratic presidential candidate worked with President Biden to enact the bipartisan 2022 Safer Communities Act, the most significant gun safety legislation to pass Congress in three decades.
- The law that was passed following multiple mass shootings that year enhanced background checks for those under 21, funding for mental health and school safety, incentives for states to implement "red flag" laws and limits on the "boyfriend loophole."
- Meanwhile, Vance on Thursday evening pointed to working with Senate colleagues on legislation that he said "would give schools more resources to bolster security."
Editor's note: This article has been updated with more comment from Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance and further context.
