On Wednesday, Democratic presidential contender Kamala Harris called for an end to the “epidemic of gun violence” in the US, following a mass shooting at a Georgia high school that killed four people.
Speaking at a rally in New Hampshire, the US vice president restated her support for an assault weapons ban, which Republicans strongly oppose, as well as additional tightening of US gun safety rules.
“This is just a senseless tragedy, on top of so many senseless tragedies,” Harris said of the shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, the latest spasm of gun violence to impact a country that has already seen hundreds of mass shootings this year.
“And it’s just outrageous that every day in our country, in the United States of America, that parents send their children to school worried about whether or not their child will come home alive,” she added.
“We have to end this epidemic of gun violence in our country once and for all. It doesn’t have to be this way,” Harris, locked in a tight race with Republican former president Donald Trump, told the crowd before she started laying out elements of her economic plan.
Trump, regarded by his party as a proponent of gun rights, wrote on social media that “our hearts are with the victims,” and that “these cherished children were taken from us far too soon by a sick and deranged monster.”
Harris, a former California prosecutor, attorney general, and senator, urged Congress to “finally” approve an assault weapons ban, similar to the one that current President Joe Biden helped write as a senator and signed into law in 1994.
The ban ended in 2004, and Congress did not renew it.
Harris also advocated for universal background checks and the implementation of so-called red flag legislation, which prohibit some persons from acquiring or having firearms due to perceived threats.
“It is a false choice to say you’re either in favor of the Second Amendment or you want to take everyone’s guns away,” Harris said. “I’m in favor of the Second Amendment, and I know we need reasonable gun safety laws in our country.”