JD Vance faces backlash after calling school shootings a ‘fact of life’

JD Vance said the way to stop school shootings isn't through tighter gun laws, but to give schools more money for security.

Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance is facing the ire of Democrats after he lamented school shootings as a “fact of life” and argued for heightened security rather than stricter gun control.

“If these psychos are going to go after our kids we’ve got to be prepared for it,” Vance said at a rally in Phoenix, Ariz., just one day after a school shooting in Georgia left four dead.

“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.”

When asked by a journalist what should be done to end school shootings, the Ohio senator dismissed the Democrat-backed argument for tighter gun laws, saying that shootings happen in states with both lax and strict laws. Instead, he said efforts to give schools more money for security makes more sense.

“I don’t like that this is a fact of life,” Vance said. “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.”

Vance said he doesn’t like the idea of his own kids going to a school with hardened security, “but that’s increasingly the reality that we live in.”

His comments were immediately seized upon by Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign team.

“It doesn’t have to be this way. We can take action to protect our children—and we will,” a post to X from the Democratic presidential nominee read, with a clip of Vance’s comments.