Americans are "sitting ducks" for mass shooters until there is stricter gun control, warned Georgia Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock.
He issued the alert as he hit back Sunday in an NBC News interview at GOP vice presidential candidate JD Vance's insistence that deadly school shootings are a "fact of life" in America.
Vance was responding to a mass shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, last Wednesday that killed two students and two teachers, and injured several others. It was the deadliest school shooting in the state's history.
Such tragedies are not a fact of life in other countries, Warnock pointed out.
"JD Vance claims that this kind of random, routine carnage is a fact of life. No, it's not. It's a fact of American life," Warnock corrected on "Meet the Press."
"Nowhere else in the world do you have a country that's not at war do you see this kind of violence," Warnock added. "So we have to ask ourselves, we have to engage in serious soul-searching as Americans. Why does this happen here?"
He answered: "It's the guns."
Americans are "sitting ducks" without stricter gun control, he warned.
"The problem is we have politicians in our country who are beholden to the gun lobby ... they go to work every day doing their bidding while the gun lobby lines its pockets with the blood of our children," Warnock said.
Warnock: "JD Vance claims that this kind of random, routine carnage is a fact of life. No it's not. It's a fact of American life ... it's the guns ... it's to the gun lobby's advantage that this has become a kind of culture war." pic.twitter.com/ZxEsjXd2aa
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 8, 2024
Vance insisted last week at an Arizona campaign rally after the Georgia shooting that such tragedies are a "fact of life" because "psychos" are going to arm themselves and "go after our kids" to "make headlines" at "soft target" schools.
Vance recommended increasing school security rather than enacting any new restrictions on firearm access.
Colt Gray, 14, has been charged with four counts of felony murder in the high school attack.
His father, 54-year-old Colin Gray, was arrested and charged Thursday with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder and eight counts of cruelty to children after reportedly purchasing the military-style assault rifle his son allegedly used as a Christmas gift for his boy last year.
Vance described the shooting as an "awful tragedy," and called the alleged shooter "an absolute barbarian."
His campaign complained that his "fact of life" explanation was somehow taken out of context.
The Vance campaign has not yet responded to Warnock's attack.
