PHOENIX (AP) — Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance said Thursday that he lamented that school shootings are a “fact of life" and argued the U.S.
Trump had multiple agencies on site providing security when some loon climbed up and started shooting. Said security even spotted him but jumped away rather than engage the shooter. Trump's head almost got blown off during what is arguably one of the best case security scenarios.
So he's unequivocally stating that there is nothing he plans on doing to reduce the killing of children. If you support no action, this is the guy you should support.
In the article he calls for bolstering security at schools. Which I always find funny because what if.... And this is a wild idea... But what if there's a shooting at a location other than a school? Not to mention that studies have shown that the presence of armed guards in schools doesn't actually do much to deter shootings.
Why would armed guards have an impact? These kids that plan on shooting up their schools are planning it as a suicide mission. It's a super elaborate suicide by cop, taking out as many of their classmates and tormentors, perceived or otherwise, as possible. Armed guards aren't going to help. Stricter rules on guns and mental fucking health care might, but that would be actually doing something that the vast majority of Americans support, and we can't do that. If we let people think overwhelming support for something gets it then they may get uppity and start demanding other things, like unions and healthcare
Security has a place. But even at schools, really all it can do is prevent a handful of deaths from turning into dozens or hundreds. You can have someone manning a metal detector at the front door. But a gunman can just walk in, shoot that person first, and walk right through the security checkpoint. Lockdowns and secure classrooms help, but they can still shoot plenty of people as they're running for the exits or running to the secure classrooms. If a gunman comes to a high school during their passing period, there really just isn't anything that can be done to prevent them from taking a handful of lives at a minimum. Even having armed swat teams available within minutes just reduces the final body count; it doesn't eliminate it. When you can just walk into a crowded building and start spraying gunfire, security really just can't prevent that, just ameliorate it.
So he’s unequivocally stating that there is nothing he plans on doing to reduce the killing of children. If you support no action, this is the guy you should support.
Remember, after one of the other school shootings (The fact that I cannot remember which one is itself a telling statement, isn't it?), one of our wonderful elected officials literally stated that they were going to do nothing about it.
If all children of American politicians were legally required to attend public schools and integrate into common classes I think we’d see sweeping implementation of gun laws real quick. Might also force them to improve the quality of public schools.
Remove all "objectionable" books from schools so their kids don't learn that black or gay people exist
Institute religion, morning prayer, the bible, etc. back in schools
Gerrymander the public school district to make sure the black/gay/poor kids aren't attending the same schools as theirs. Sure, those kids can have the opportunity to attend schools not in their neighborhood under state "school choice" laws, etc. but golly gee darn the waiting lists are years long, dontchaknow.
Ensure that their children are attending the newer public schools that have more robust security measures while the rest of the district are still going to school in buildings that were built when things like electricity were still an optional luxury and modern security would be nigh-on impossible.
If all else fails, they will hire private home tutors.
I will bet the left body part of your choice that all of those things would happen long before they actually did anything to try to improve the quality of the schools. Remember, half of these people are about to vote for a candidate who says the department of education shouldn't exist. They'd destroy the entire system before they'd try to improve it.
Remember the saying "If conservatives become convinced that they can not win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy." The same thing applies here, except it's the public school system.
You know, that's something I'm actually curious about. Is there any data on shooting rates at public vs. private schools? The private schools I've seen don't seem to have any better security than public schools. Though private schools do have the benefit of being able to just easily expel the more troubled students.
These guys would gladly have your child shot to preserve their money. How they can live peaceful lives in a country of 330 million people is beyond me.
Simple. They use that money to send their kids to private school where this sort of thing would never happen. Their kids are safe, and they get votes and money from gun owners. That’s all they care about.
The Ohio senator was asked by a journalist what can be done to stop school shootings. He said further restricting access to guns, as many Democrats advocate, won’t end them, noting they happen in states with both lax and strict gun laws. He touted efforts in Congress to give schools more money for security.
I always find this weird because it just completely glosses over the possibilities of A) the restrictions not really doing anything/enough, B) the incredible ease by which someone can just... Go to another state, and C) how absurdly easy it is to purchase firearms in the secondary market.
His argument isn't even a valid/honest one. Take Illinois and Chicago specifically. They have stricter gun laws, but when a gun store in Indiana is just a 20-30 minute drive away those restrictions don't do much because of how close by a place with lax laws is.
Well, he has mastered the Trumpian art of finding a way to be wrong even when he isn't wrong.
He's right in that more anti-gun laws that are largely toothless and/or performative won't do jack shit. Of course, the reason for that is that the genie was out of the bottle decades ago. There are just simply too many guns out on the streets already for any kind of anti-gun law to be even remotely effective. If the first two steps of the process aren't "Reduce the amount of guns currently out on the streets" and "Prevent new guns from made available to the public", then everything else you try to do will be nothing more than a complete waste of time.
Notice how all the laws that have been passed to combat school shootings with AR-15s have done exactly nothing to stop school shooters with AR-15s. There's a reason for that.
It's only a fact of life if people like Vance let it be. There is more than can be done besides turning schools into fortresses and thoughts and prayers.
There is more than can be done besides turning schools into fortresses and thoughts and prayers.
I have almost 20 years of experience working in the public school system. You know those "fortresses"? They're also for show. Unless you're literally putting every child through a metal detector individually (which would take way too much time), any student can easily sneak a weapon right in their backpack. Schools simply do not have the time or resources to be checking every individual student every time the metal detector goes off, assuming they have one in the first place. Those bulletproof windows don't do shit when the shooter is in the building already. And any adult can socially engineer their way to access by simply claiming to be a parent, vendor, substitute teacher, or whatever. I have been to dozens of districts. The number of "fortresses" that could effectively stop a school shooter is exactly zero.
Give me a public school building anywhere in the country, and I'll show you ten ways that all of your security measures will do exactly nothing. I will bet large sums of money on it.
Oh absolutely, it is security theater. I did not mean to suggest that turning schools into fortresses was a valid solution, it's just the only solution being offered up by people like Vance.
The sheriff said a 16-year-old boy, for whom Friday was his first day at Joppatowne High School, shot a 15-year-old classmate in a bathroom. Gahler said it's believed the victim was struck by a single gunshot.
A student at a high school shoots another student in the school and that's not a school shooting to you?
Somehow I get the impression his idea of "better security" is the local team of Gravy Seals patrolling campus looking for "trouble". Trouble being minorities, girls, kids who look at them funny. That kind of thing.
Not that you would ever want to live in Mexico but:
Between 2004 and 2024, Mexico has recorded 17 school shootings, while the United States has experienced a staggering 288 school shootings from 2009 to 2018 alone, with the U.S. averaging over 87 incidents annually. The disparity is significant: the U.S. has seen over 57 times the number of school shootings compared to the combined total of the other G7 countries during the same period. In contrast, the school shootings in Mexico have generally resulted in fewer fatalities, with most incidents resulting in zero to two deaths. This stark difference highlights the severity of gun violence in U.S. schools compared to those in Mexico, where school shootings are less frequent and often less deadly. The motivations behind these shootings also vary, with the U.S. incidents often linked to mental health issues, bullying, and a desire for notoriety.
Japan had zero. France, Germany, Canada, and Finland each had more than two public mass shootings from 2000-2022, far fewer than the U.S. The U.S. accounts for 76% of public mass shooting incidents and 70% of victim fatalities compared to 35 other economically and politically similar countries, despite making up only 33% of the combined population.
87 incidents annually means one every 4 days or about once a week 😞.
That's depressing. You are more likely to be in one of those than to win the lottery! That's just depressing. My kids are at more risk of that than my wife's chances of winning the lottery so I can stop going to work like a dummy. I don't mean I work as a dummy, I mean that I'm a dummy for going to work while sending my kids for a daily chance of getting speed holes.
I'm not sure what "milk steak" is, but if JD Vance is eating it, I think there's a better-than-average chance it's some kind of slang for performing oral sex on a couch.
Look, I hate this dude as much as the next guy, and the statement can still be a shrug, but he said "I hate that this is a fact of life" meaning I hate that this happens, and the fact that it happens.
His idea to fix it is to bolster school security. A wrong move, but it's not the "oh well shrug it off" that the headline is making it out to be.
Completely disagree. Saying "It's a fact of life" while actively trying to combat it is one thing. COVID, for example. A fact of life that we had to deal with while we tried to figure out what it was and how to stop it.
He wasn't saying it's a fact of life like that. He's being completely dismissive and saying "It's a fact of life, it's not going to change, and people are going to have to accept that.". There's no eagerness to combat the problem, and he knows his party has absolutely zero intention of doing so. Heck, he's not even the first politician to say it, and half of his party has believed this for years.
So no, I do not believe this is a quote from a man who is just acknowledging the reality of the world we live in, as he sees it. This is a man who believes that gun violence is just a side-effect of protecting gun rights above any and all else, and any children that die as a result are just an unfortunate statistic.
I think the right cares about kids dying, unfortunately they care about free reign guns as well. So their efforts to deal with this problem is a sideways workaround by fighting fire with fire. Kill the perp before he kills. Add guns. Give everyone guns. Find the good guys.
All of it's wrong, I know. But it's not an "oh well" glance at it.