Lectures Vice President Kamala Harris interrupted a prepared speech at a campaign event in New Hampshire on Wednesday to speak about the mass shooting at Apalachee High School outside Atlanta, Georgia.
“I grew up in California. We had earthquake drills and fire drills, but our kids sat in classrooms where they should be fulfilling their God-given potential, and part of their big, beautiful brains was worrying about a shooter bursting through the classroom door,” the Democratic presidential candidate said.
“It doesn’t have to be this way. This is just one of many issues at stake in this election,” Harris said.
According to According to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, four people were killed and at least nine were injured in the incident.
Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith described the crime scene to reporters as “evil.”
The shooting happened over the Labor Day weekend, a time of high gun violence. According to At least 141 people were shot and killed across the United States between Friday, Aug. 30 and Monday, Sept. 2, and an additional 357 were injured, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
Despite a decline in violent crime nationwide over the past few years, August Report Everytown for Gun Safety found an increase in shootings in K-12 schools in the 2023-2024 school year (144 incidents) compared to the previous school year, 2022-2023 (110 incidents). Everytown has been collecting data on the subject since 2013, and the highest number of shootings occurred in 2021-2022 (192 incidents), during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Harris is Much of her time Harris has advocated for gun violence prevention in public office. As a prosecutor in San Francisco, she prioritized domestic violence cases, and as California’s attorney general, she helped the state pass a red flag law that would ban gun sales to people a court has determined may pose a danger to themselves or others.
As vice president of the Biden administration, Harris Involved He helped pass and implement the bipartisan Safe Communities Act, the first federal gun safety law in decades.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is a longtime ally of the National Rifle Association, which has opposed gun safety laws at the state, local and federal levels. Trump’s 2024 campaign has been endorsed by the NRA, which has He was praised as a “strong defender” of the group’s radical agenda.
“Our hearts are with the victims and their loved ones of the tragic incident in Winder, Georgia.” Trump wrote: “These precious children were taken from us far too soon by a sick, deranged monster,” he wrote on the website Truth Social.
Trump has offered similar condolences after other mass shootings but has not supported legislation such as an assault weapons ban. Supporting HarrisIt will combat gun violence.
In fact, following the school shooting in Iowa in January, Trump “We offer our support and deepest condolences” to the victim, he said, before adding: “It’s just awful. I’m shocked to see this happening here. But we have to get over this and move on.”
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