Vance says school shootings are ‘a fact of life.’ That’s cowardice, not leadership.

In the wake of a deadly Georgia school shooting, JD Vance, the Republican who incorrectly thinks he’s qualified to be vice president of the United States said this at a Thursday night rally: “We don’t have to like the reality that we live in, but it is the reality we live in.”

I’m sorry, what? A 14-year-old student is suspected of using an assault-style rifle – reportedly a gift from his dad – to shoot and kill two Apalachee High School students his same age and two teachers while also injuring nine others. As with any school or mass shooting, there are victims well beyond those shot and their families, children and adults whose lives are forever damaged by the trauma.

And Vance’s response the day after that tragedy is “that’s the reality we live in”? Pardon my attempt at publishing profanity, but Vance can (expletive) right off if he’s ready and willing to accept armed children committing routine acts of carnage in American schools as our reality that just has to be accepted.

Vance calls school shootings ‘a fact of life’ the day after Georgia tragedy

At the Arizona rally, the senator 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 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.”

The psycho here – to borrow Vance’s crude term – is the so-called politician who looks at a school shooting like the one in Georgia on Wednesday and says, “Well, it’s just the way things are. What else can we do other than staff our schools with armed guards and install bulletproof glass doors and metal detectors and such?”

Buddy, we can do a hell of a lot more than that, and you know it.

There are plenty of things we could do to stem the tide of school shootings

We can ban AR-15-style rifles like the one police say was used in the Apalachee High School shooting. Those rifles have been used in mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo and Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso and Pittsburgh. They’re a lethal favorite of mass shooters.

You can advocate for safe firearm storage laws, something Georgia doesn’t have. You can demand mandatory background checks, something Georgia doesn’t do. You can require permits to purchase guns, another thing Georgia doesn’t do.

You can provide funding that makes mental health care more accessible to all Americans. And yes, you can beef up security at schools.

But to throw your hands up and say school shootings are just the reality we live in? That’s weak. That’s garbage. And that’s a far cry from leadership.

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Harris smartly said ‘it doesn’t have to be this way’

Compare Vance’s verbal shoulder shrug to what Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris said the day the Georgia school shooting happened: “This is just a senseless tragedy on top of so many senseless tragedies, and it’s just outrageous that everyday in our country, in the United States of America, that parents have to send their children to school, worried about whether or not their child will come home alive. It’s senseless.”

She continued: “We’ve got to stop it, and we have to end this epidemic of gun violence in our country once and for all. You know it doesn’t have to be this way.”

Exactly. Any politician saying anything less than “it doesn’t have to be this way” is abrogating their responsibility to keep Americans safe. To keep our children safe.

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The ‘Too soon!’ crowd is apparently fine with giving up

Republicans routinely holler at liberals for talking about gun laws after a school shooting – “Too soon!” they shout – but I guess they’re fine with their vice presidential candidate standing up the day after two school children were shot to death and saying, “Welp, whatcha gonna do?”

Vance had proven himself a schmuck and a horrid retail politician before his comments about school shootings being “a fact of life.” But now … good lord. This boob has no business being a heartbeat away from the presidency.

And he sure as hell has no business telling the rest of us the unparalleled horrors of school shootings are something we’re going to have to live with.

To hell with that.

And, quite frankly, to hell with him.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Vance calls school shootings ‘a fact of life.’ He’s too weak to lead