JD Vance Dislikes That School Shootings Are a 'Fact of Life,' But What Can Ya Do

Early Wednesday, a shooter opened fire and killed two students and two teachers in a mass shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia. The suspect, a 14-year-old student, is in custody, and his father faces charges in connection with the shooting as well as gifting his son with the firearm that was allegedly used to carry out the violence. 

In the aftermath of this tragedy, which took place within days of the new school year, Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance offered a response that’s somehow even more callous than the typical, awful Republican song-and-dance we’ve been subjected to for years now. At an Arizona rally on Thursday, Vance said he mourned the loss of lives but, ultimately, deemed school shootings inevitable—even though, in 2018, CNN found the U.S. has 57 times as many school shootings as all other wealthy nations combined. 

“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,” Vance said, lamenting that “psychos are going to go after our kids we’ve got to be prepared for it.”

“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.”

Per the Associated Press, Vance expressed dismay that his own children will have to attend schools with heightened security presence “but that’s increasingly the reality that we live in,” he said, pointing to how school shootings take place in both states with more restrictions on guns and states with more lax laws. Of course, in the absence of standardized federal legislation to keep assault rifles out of civilians’ hands, it’s difficult for any state to prevent mass shootings, regardless of their individual laws.

There’s so much that’s infuriating about Vance’s response, which is far too similar to The Onion’s “'No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens” headline. School shootings aren’t inevitable; that mentality itself renders real solutions impossible. Schools shouldn’t be militarized zones surrounded by security forces and police officers—who, as we’ve seen at numerous school shootings by now, are ill-equipped to actually stop school shootings. There are certainly some security measures that can be helpful, like Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’ proposal to ensure classroom doors don’t lock from the outside, which proved fatal during the 2018 Parkland school shooting. But the notion that turning schools into high-security prisons is the solution rather than keeping firearms out of the hands of dangerous people is ridiculous and offensive.

In the wake of justified outrage over Vance’s comments, a spokesperson for the Ohio senator accused the AP of taking his comments out of context. In a statement shared with Fox News, Vance’s spokesperson called the AP’s tweet of Vance’s own words “yet another case of the fake news media brazenly lying about a Republican politician.” The statement continues, “Senator Vance said exactly the opposite of what the Associated Press claimed. It should come as no surprise that the AP lost any and all credibility it had years ago, because they will lie about literally anything in order prop up the Democrats.”

Conservative influencers and a Twitter community note attached to the AP’s original, since-deleted tweet seem to take issue with how the tweet doesn’t include that Vance said he “[doesn’t] like” that school shootings are a “fact of life,” but… that doesn’t change the quote or its meaning at all. Vance still accepts school shootings as inevitable—though he doesn’t like them—instead of recognizing them as the policy failures that they are.