Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign and some liberal media outlets pushed a false claim on Thursday night indicating that Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance referred to school shootings as a “fact of life.”
Harris’ campaign released a statement falsely accusing Vance of saying school shootings are simply a “fact of life” during a Thursday night rally. While at the podium, Vance called on schools to ramp up security since it is a “fact of life” that school buildings are an easy target for shooters.
“What’s really going to solve this problem, and look, I don’t like this, I don’t like to admit this,” Vance said. “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 you pull your security at our schools so that a person who walks through the front door … we got to bolster security so that if a psycho wants to walk through the front door and kill a bunch of children, they’re not able to.”
The Harris’ campaign’s official X account, Kamala HQ, accused Vance of “attacking common sense gun safety reform” and ignoring the tragedy of school shootings.
“JD Vance responds to the deadly shooting in Georgia by saying school shootings are just “a fact of life” and attacking common sense gun safety reform,” Kamala HQ wrote on “X.”
JD Vance responds to the deadly shooting in Georgia by saying school shootings are just “a fact of life” and attacking common sense gun safety reform pic.twitter.com/ISNRuXneg6
— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) September 6, 2024
Harris, along with some liberal media outlets, accused Vance of brushing off the tragedy of school shootings and criticizing any steps to stop them.
“School shootings are not just a fact of life,” Harris said. “It doesn’t have to be this way. We can take action to protect our children—and we will.”
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. https://t.co/Oi8s9MfgvU
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) September 6, 2024
Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom accused Vance of “shrugging his shoulders” at children being killed in schools.
“JD Vance: School shootings are just ‘a fact of life,'” Newsom said. “Kids are being killed and he’s shrugging his shoulders. Remember that in November.”
JD Vance: School shootings are just “a fact of life.”
Kids are being killed and he’s shrugging his shoulders.
Remember that in November. pic.twitter.com/zY7erJjgAs
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) September 6, 2024
The Associated Press (AP) published an article on Thursday night with the headline, “JD Vance says school shootings are a ‘fact of life,’ calls for better security,” according to an archived version of the article. The outlet changed the headline later that evening to read, “JD Vance says he laments that school shootings are a ‘fact of life’ and calls for better security,” without including any editor’s note about the update.
The AP further deleted its initial tweet roughly 90 minutes after posting it and replaced it with correct context, saying that Vance “laments that school shootings are a ‘fact of life’ and says the U.S. needs to harden security to prevent more carnage.” (RELATED: AP Deletes JD Vance Tweet After Fact Checkers Call Them Out)
“This post replaces an earlier post that was deleted to add context to the partial quote from Vance,” the Associated Press wrote on a late Thursday night post on X.
This post replaces an earlier post that was deleted to add context to the partial quote from Vance.
— The Associated Press (@AP) September 6, 2024
Axios published a piece detailing Harris’ attack on Vance’s remark, but later included an editor’s note indicating the outlet updated the piece to include “further context” regarding Vance’s statement.
Vance said Harris is lying about his statement instead of “addressing her own failures” in response to Harris’ accusations.
“Kamala wants to take security out of our schools instead of protecting our children,” Vance said. “Instead of addressing her own failures, she lies about what I said.”
Kamala wants to take security out of our schools instead of protecting our children. Instead of addressing her own failures, she lies about what I said.
More desperation from the biggest fraud in American politics. https://t.co/KNOwOtpcLx
— JD Vance (@JDVance) September 6, 2024
Vance addressed a shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, leaving four people dead and nine others injured on Wednesday. The Republican vice presidential candidate said criticized Harris’ alleged plan to take away guns from law-abiding citizens in response to school shootings.
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