Kamala Harris went off script on Wednesday to blast the epidemic of school shootings in the United States, calling them ‘senseless’ and saying ‘it does not have to be this way.’
The vice president, while campaigning in New Hampshire, addressed a school shooting that took place in Georgia on Wednesday morning, which happened as many students are returning to the classroom after summer break.
She acknowledged she was ‘going off script’ in making her comments and expressed empathy for what students and their parents go through.
”By the way, I love Gen Z, I just love Gen Z,’ she said.
She noted when she visits universities, she asks the students how many of them have had to sit through an active shooter drill and that ‘almost every hand’ was raised.
‘I grew up in California, earthquake drills. We had fire drills, but our kids are sitting in a classroom where they should be fulfilling their god given potential and some part of their big, beautiful brain is concerned about a shooter busting through the door of the classroom. It does not have to be this way,’ she said.
Harris was in New Hampshire to talk about small businesses as part of her presidential campaign. She proposed a plan for an expansion of tax incentives for small businesses.
But she did address the Georgia shooting at the top of her remarks, saying ‘our hearts are with all the students, the teachers and their families, of course, and we are grateful to the first responders and law enforcement.’
She added this is ‘just a senseless tragedy on top of so many senseless tragedies, and it’s just outrageous that every day 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. It is. 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. It doesn’t have to be this way.’
‘This is one of the many issues that’s at stake in this election,’ she added, before going back on script to talk about her economic plan.
Harris spoke from behind a wall of see-through bullet proof glass, a new feature to her outdoor rallies and one that comes after an assassination attempt on Donald Trump last month at an outdoor rally in Butler, Pa.
The shooting at a high school about 45 miles outside Atlanta on Wednesday morning left four dead – two students and two teachers – and an additional nine taken to various hospitals with injuries, state officials said.
A 14-year-old suspect is in custody. The sheriff said an armed school resource officer took the shooter into custody.
Apalachee High School was put on lockdown after gunfire was reported at the scene around 10:30am on Wednesday.
Several schools in Georgia also were under lockdown on Wednesday morning, the fifth full week of school in the state.
Georgia police and the FBI are on the scene.
It is unclear if the deceased and victims are high school students or adults.
Apalachee High School – which returned from the summer vacation on August 1 – has about 1,900 students.
Heartbreaking videos showed frantic students rushing to the school’s football field, while others huddled around ambulances as people flooded out of the building.
School shootings are on the rise in the U.S.
There were at least 82 incidents in 2023, but 2022 was one of the deadliest years, with 46 fatalities, according to a CNN analysis.
President Joe Biden was been briefed on the shooting and said in a statement: ‘Jill and I are mourning the deaths of those whose lives were cut short due to more senseless gun violence and thinking of all of the survivors whose lives are forever changed.
‘What should have been a joyous back-to-school season in Winder, Georgia, has now turned into another horrific reminder of how gun violence continues to tear our communities apart.
‘Students across the country are learning how to duck and cover instead of how to read and write. We cannot continue to accept this as normal.
‘We are closely coordinating with officials at the federal, state and local level, and are grateful for the first responders who brought the suspect into custody and prevented further loss of life.’
From her remarks on the shooting, Harris also launched into a series of other campaign topics. She was in New Hampshire to lay out additional components of her economic agenda including benefits for small businesses and taxing the rich and big corporations.
‘Billionaires and big corporations must pay their fair share in taxes,’ she insisted as the crowd cheered.
The vice president argued it is ‘not right’ that those who can ‘most afford’ to pay up are often taxed less than working Americans such as firefighters and teachers.
During her visit, Harris broke with the president in a rare move and announced she wants the long-term capital gains tax rate increased to 28 percent from 20 percent.
It was the latest in a series of tax proposals on the rich and big companies, Harris signaled she supports as a way to help pay for her ‘Opportunity Economy’ agenda that also includes raising the corporate tax rate to 28 percent.
During the visit, the vice president also pitched her plan for deliver tax relief to small businesses stating it would be one of the top priorities of her administration if elected.
The vice president pointed out that half of U.S. workers either run or work for a small business, and they are essential to the U.S. economy and hailed their hard work to ‘build a dream’ and by extension strengthen the middle class and country.
During the visit, the vice president announced a new goal for a record 25 million new business applications during her first term if elected. That would surpass the previous record of 19 million set during the Biden administration.
Harris also unveiled her policy proposal to expand the startup tax deduction tenfold from $5,000 to $50,000 to help more small businesses get off the ground. She called it ‘essentially a tax cut’ for starting a small business.
There were also several other efforts pitched by the Democratic nominee to support small businesses by cutting red tape.
Supporters in the crowd waved signs that read ‘Opportunity Economy.’ The vice president made her first economic policy pitch last month in North Carolina and has been leaning into the opportunity branding ever since.
During that event in Raleigh, Harris proposed a controversial policy to ban price gouging to combat rising costs, expanding the Child Tax Credit and other measures such as providing $25,000 down payments for new homeowners and initiatives to tackling the housing crisis. Some measures have been met with pushback over whether they would work to address soaring costs and the price tag.
The Democratic presidential nominee delivered her remarks in the late afternoon Wednesday at the Throwback Brewery in North Hampton, just outside Portsmouth.
While in New Hampshire, the vice president was joined by a number of elected officials including Senators Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan as well as Congressman Chris Pappas.
Harris is set to spend the rest of the week in Pennsylvania starting Thursday as she prepares for the presidential debate next Tuesday in Philadelphia. The high-stakes showdown will be her first face-to-face with rival Donald Trump.
The visit to the state marked Harris’ first visit there since 2021. New Hampshire voters in attendance said they were not upset it had been such a long time since she visited and were simply happy to have her.
The event set outside a white barn draped in a blue Harris-Walz sign that read ‘A New Way Forward’ and an American was a quintessential campaign backdrop and a throwback to when Democrats once barnstormed the state in the packed 2020 Democratic presidential primary.
A few members in the audience on Wednesday were even wearing ‘Kamala Harris for the People’ t-shirts from her original 2020 short-lived presidential campaign.
New Hampshire played a pivotal role in that primary, so Harris spent significant time there before being one of the earlier candidates to exit the race in December 2019.
‘She has grown tremendously,’ said Natalie Kelley from Wakefield, NH.
Kelley was one of Harris’ longtime supporters who was also in attendance for the then-senator’s primary campaign events in the state.
‘We were still burned from Hillary [Clinton], so comparing her with Hillary at that time five years ago it was stark still because Hillary was right on it. That’s Kamala now,’ she explained.
Her husband Jim Kelley agreed emphatically that the vice president is a much stronger candidate now.
He pointed to her experience in the White House as making an obvious difference.
While the policy pitch at the event was focused on the economy, multiple voters in attendance brought up reproductive rights as one of the most important issues in the state and praised Harris’ work in the Biden administration advocating on the issue.