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.
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.
The right has shown exactly zero evidence of this in the 25 years since Columbine happened. The most they have ever given is "Thoughts and prayers", "this isn't the time to talk about it", and "Hey, can we just remove the doors?"
But it’s not an “oh well” glance at it.
It is as long as Republican politicans continue to say it is. It is as long as the only "solutions" that the GOP supports are political theater stunts that have proven to be ineffective, have no chance of working, and don't reduce the availability of guns.
Tell me this: When was the last time a school shooter showed up, found the doors locked, and just said "aw shucks" and gave up? When was the last time a school shooter, having already gained access to the building, was successfully thwarted by teachers without hurting anybody? When was the last time a school shooter even gave half a shit about anti-gun laws when they're not even planning on living through the event themselves? How many schools in this country are actually physically equipped to stop a school shooter that is that determined to gain entry?
These things don't work because there are two important facts that people refuse to understand: Once the shooter gets access to their weapon of choice and entry to the target location (both of which are pathetically easy), everything else is irrelevant. Laws don't matter. He won. He has his weapon, he has his targets, your kids are dead, along with the shooter who will most likely commit suicide while he's "at his peak", therefore ignoring consequences or even having to live with what he did.
And until any of this changes, anything the GOP says absolutely is an "Oh well" glance at it. Because they actively refuse to do anything beyond that.