We feel like we’re trapped in that Onion headline they’ve been printing once a week for 10 years: “‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens.”
If you tuned out the news for your sanity, there was yet another school shooting this week. This time it was in Georgia, at Apalachee High School. Two students and two faculty members were killed when a 14-year-old opened fire with an AR-15. The assault rifle was apparently a Christmas present from his dad, who is now also being charged with murder.
Lawmakers are always asked about school shootings because, well, frankly they’re the only ones who can do a damn thing about it, but they never do. Usually they offer “thoughts and prayers.” Georgia Governor Brian Kemp told reporters who asked if there’s anything more his office can do about school shootings:
“Today is not the day for politics or policy.”
You know, the old “too soon” argument. Thoughts and prayers but never ever action today.
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JD Quotes – Yes, The Full Ones
But JD Vance has proven to be a special breed of out-of-touch politician. He’s not even good at pretending to care. Seriously, he’s like a terrible sound-byte machine! So what did Donald Trump‘s running mate have to say about the shooting? Like maybe what their administration might try?
First he implied states with stricter gun safety laws have more school shootings. Pretty blatantly. He began:
“You’ve got states with very strict gun laws, and you’ve got some states that don’t have strict gun laws at all. And the states with strict gun laws, they have a lot of school shootings. And the states without strict gun laws, some of them have school shootings, too.”
Y’all caught that, right? Not just us? OK, just so we’re clear at that little verbal BS he was trying to pull. But here’s the part that caught most folks’ attention:
“I don’t like this. I don’t like to admit this. 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.”
“A fact of life.” He doesn’t like that school shootings are just “a fact of life.” Aaand we’re right back to the Onion. Because the US is the only country in the world where this happens so regularly. So clearly it’s not “a fact of life.” It’s a problem born of an abject refusal to prioritize the safety of children over gun lobby money. Hell, even the will of voters! Because even in such a gun culture as the US, the vast majority favor common sense gun safety measures to keep weapons of war off the streets — and notably out of the hands of children and out of the hands of adults with a history of violence.
But it’s so clearly not the guns that are the problem for JD. No, those are another “fact of life.” So since he can’t possibly suggest doing anything about gun safety, what’s his plan?
“We’ve got to bolster security at our schools so that a person who walks through the front door… and wants to kill a bunch of children — they’re not able to.”
Again… this doesn’t make sense. There were police officers at Apalachee. There are cops at every school now. Hell, at Uvalde the cops were so well-funded they basically had a private army, and they did almost nothing to protect those kids. Why? Because the shooter had a head start and a damned AR-15. In the reports on what went wrong afterward, it was made clear the cops were scared of the gunman’s “battle rifle.” It was such a powerful weapon, it kept all those cops at bay for over an hour.
JD. IT. IS. THE. GUNS! It’s always been the guns!
You want a “fact of life”? There are psychos who want to hurt children everywhere. That’s messed up. But it’s true, mental illness isn’t an American thing. And yet they don’t have school shootings in the UK, in Sweden, in Spain, in Italy. Why? The guns, JD.
The Responses
We weren’t the only ones unimpressed with JD’s comments. Kamala Harris posted on X (Twitter) afterward:
“School shootings are not just a fact of life. It doesn’t have to be this way. We can take action to protect our children — and we will.”
Her running mate, Governor Tim Walz, hit even harder at Vance, writing:
“This is pathetic. We can’t quit on our kids — they deserve better.”
Harris and Walz have not yet announced a plan, but even being open to gun safety legislation is clearly a world of difference. The most important first step is admitting the problem, right?
We weren’t the only ones taking Vance to task.
“‘fact of life’ when literally no other country in the world has this issue… interesting.
“They were armed to the teeth in Uvalde. They hid in the hallway. While children were slaughtered. They hid in their tactical gear in the hallway.”
“Shootings were not a ‘fact of life’ when I was in school. We should not accept this pathetic excuse for the slaughter of our kids.”
“Accepting school shootings as “a fact of life” is giving up on our future—our kids deserve real solutions, not resignation.”
“If you felt “Thoughts and Prayers” was callous wait until you see JD Vance’s heartfelt“Hey, I don’t like it anymore than you do but (school shootings) are a fact of life.” The creep can’t even FAKE emote. #Shillbilly #Weird”
Wonder Woman star Lynda Carter even tweeted:
“Do you remember growing up with the constant threat of school shootings? I don’t. Most Gen X and millennials don’t. So no, they aren’t a “fact of life,” @JDVance.”
(Side note — it will never not be funny to us that JD Vance is a big sci-fi fantasy nerd, and he’s constantly being dressed down on the internet by actors from Star Wars and Star Trek and now Wonder Woman. LOLz!)
JD’s JV Squad Of Defenders
BTW, there were tons of responses on Vance’s side. However, they were all saying everyone was mischaracterizing his comments — pointing out how he said he didn’t like that it was a fact of life. But… he still did say it WAS “a fact of life.”
No one is trying to even imply he said he likes it. We honestly can’t tell if these folks are missing the point or just scrambling for something to hit back with. But the point is, even though he doesn’t like it, he’s made up his mind there’s nothing we can do about the guns. Hell, his plan is more guns. Just more good guys with guns. Which, frankly, is insane to us. Why? Because…
SEE POINT ONE! It’s not a fact of life anywhere else!
What Donald Trump Said
BTW, if you’re curious what Trump had to say about the Georgia shooting, he… well, he once again went full meaningless word salad, saying during a town hall in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on Wednesday:
“It’s a sick and angry world for a lot of reasons and we’re going to make it better. We’re going to heal our world. We’re going to get rid of all these wars that are starting all over the place because of incompetence.”
“For a lot of reasons”? “All these wars”…? What the hell is he even talking about? This is the childcare answer again, he can’t even focus on one subject long enough to complete a sentence!
But back when he wasn’t quite so incomprehensible in January, he said in relation to another school shooting:
“I want to send our support and our deepest sympathies to the victims and families touched by the terrible school shooting yesterday in Perry, Iowa. It’s just horrible, so surprising to see it here. But we have to get over it. We have to move forward.”
We’re just going to repeat that last bit…
“We have to get over it.” Next to that, Vance’s comments aren’t so shocking, are they? If anything, he’s at least giving some solution, even if he’s failing to identify the guns as the problem yet again.
Anyway, we’ll be absolutely clear here. We don’t like this. W don’t like to admit this. We don’t like that this is a fact of life. But Trump and Vance and Kemp and all these guys would prefer not to ever enact common sense gun safety laws, not even ones most people already voiced agreement with in polls. Whether it’s gun lobby money, appealing to the base or the party line, or actual factual, sincerely held principles, they’ve just decided the guns are untouchable. And as long as they’re the ones making decisions about our laws, JD Vance will continue to be right — and school shootings will continue to be a fact of life. And he will just hate it, and we’ll hate it… But nothing will be done about it. The most you’ll be able to hope for is the illusion of more safety when guards armed with their own assault rifles walk the halls of your children’s schools. And they’ll still be pretending we aren’t the only country in the world with this massive epidemic endangering our kids.
To learn more about the impact of gun violence, visit https://www.apha.org/topics-and-issues/gun-violence
If you’re experiencing emotional distress related to incidents of mass violence, you can call or text the Disaster Distress Helpline at 1-800-985-5990 or visit their website at https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/disaster-distress-helpline for more resources.
[Image via 12 News/Fox 5/YouTube.]
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