In the wake of a devastating school shooting in Winder, Georgia, Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) has sparked controversy with his dismissive remarks on the issue of school safety. Vance, who was speaking at a rally in Phoenix, characterized school shootings as an inevitable “fact of life,” and suggested that prayers for the victims and enhanced security measures are the most feasible responses, rather than stricter gun control.

Following the tragic shooting at Apalachee High School, which claimed the lives of four people and left several others injured, Vance described the incident as an “awful tragedy.” However, his proposed solutions diverge sharply from calls for stricter gun laws.

“We’ve got to think about these people if you are the praying type, I know I am,” Vance said. “We’ve got to hold them up in prayers. And after holding them in prayers and giving them our sympathies, because that’s what people deserve in a time of tragedy, we have to think about how to make this less common.”

Vance’s comments reflect a broader Republican stance that prioritizes security enhancements over legislative measures to control firearms.

“If these psychos are going to go after our kids we’ve got to be prepared for it,” Vance asserted. “We don’t have to like the reality that we live in, but it is the reality we live in. We’ve got to deal with it,” he added, suggesting that the reality of school shootings cannot be changed and must be managed through increased security at 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,” he said.

This position sharply contrasts with that of Vice President Kamala Harris, who has called for more robust gun control measures in response to gun violence. Harris, who leads the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, described the shooting as a “senseless tragedy” and emphasized the need to tackle the nation’s gun violence epidemic “once and for all.”

Vance criticized Harris’s approach, arguing that strict gun laws are ineffective in preventing school shootings. “Clearly strict gun laws are not going to solve this problem,” Vance claimed, asserting that both states with stringent gun regulations and those with lax laws experience similar rates of school shootings.

Vance’s stance underscores a recurring Republican tendency to address gun violence through increased security measures rather than legislative changes, raising questions about the efficacy and priorities of current political responses to the ongoing crisis of school shootings.

Watch Vance’s remarks in the video below: