JD Vance says school shootings are a ‘fact of life’ in response to Georgia killings

JD Vance called mass school shootings a “fact of life” and rejected calls for stricter gun laws after a troubled 14-year-old high school freshman in Georgia killed four people with an assault weapon he received from his father for Christmas.

The Republican candidate for vice president condemned the bloodshed, but stressed that even stricter gun laws would not have stopped Colt Gray from killing two classmates and two teachers at Apalachee High School on Wednesday with an AR-15 that he legally owned.

“I don't like that it's a fact,” Vance said at a rally in Phoenix late Thursday. “We don't have to like the reality we live in, but it's the reality we live in. We have to deal with it.”

Vance called the Georgia massacre a “terrible tragedy” and said the families in Winder, about an hour's drive east of Atlanta, need the nation's thoughts and prayers.

The senator from Ohio stressed that stricter gun laws would not put an end to mass shootings, as they occur in states with both lax and strict gun laws.

In response to the scourge of school shootings, rare in other countries but common in the United States, he called for tighter security measures.

“If you're a psychopath and you want to make headlines, you have to know that our schools are easy targets,” Vance said. “We need to beef up security so that a psychopath who comes through the front door and kills a bunch of kids can't do that.”

Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris called the mass murder in Georgia a wake-up call to the nation to implement common sense gun reforms, such as universal background checks, banning gun ownership by minors and banning assault weapons like the one used by Gray.

“Donald Trump and JD Vance will always put the gun lobby ahead of our children,” said Ammar Moussa, a spokesman for the Harris campaign. “That is the choice in this election.”

Colt Gray and his father, Colin Gray, 54, were both charged with murder in connection with the mass killing on Friday. Prosecutors say the father allowed his son to keep the gun despite threatening to commit a mass killing at his school.