Vice President Kamala Harris’ plan to tour the building where the 2018 Parkland, Florida mass shooting occurred isn’t sitting well with some victims’ parents.
Take Ryan Petty, whose 14-year-old daughter Alaina Petty died during the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
Speaking with Fox News this week, he outright accused Harris of trying to use the school for a “photo op” to “push” a gun control agenda.
“What’s frustrating to me is that this building should have been demolished years ago, and it’s now being used as a photo op for politicians that want to push an agenda,” he said. “But politicians, quite frankly, don’t understand what it takes to protect our nation’s schools. They don’t understand the causes of the Parkland tragedy.”
“They don’t understand what led to the tragedy and are just there to push their gun control agenda. I’m tired of it. It needs to stop. The building needs to be demolished,” he added.
Petty further said the VP’s visit, scheduled for Saturday, is a “slap in the face” to the Parkland families who have been working for six long years on developing realistic solutions to school shootings.
“The vice president and the White House’s Office of Gun Violence Prevention made it very clear to families early on that nothing short of new gun control was going to satisfy them in protecting our nation’s schools,” he said. “And that is just a slap in the face to those of us that have worked for six years now to try to protect our nation’s schools.”
His point was that there are “many ways” besides gun control in which the government could protect children from school shootings.
“There are so many ways that we can protect our kids and our teachers at school that don’t require the infringement on the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding gun owners around the country,” he said.
“But the vice president and the Office of Gun Violence Prevention don’t want to hear any of those solutions. What they want to do is create an opportunity for the vice president to spout gun control talking points at a site that, quite frankly, is hallowed ground at this point. I find the whole thing offensive,” he added.
Tomorrow VP Kamala Harris is touring Stoneman Douglas high school, the site where my daughter was killed in her classroom.
The VP is not there to make schools safer, she’s visiting to reinforce a gun control agenda.
It’s a photo op & campaign event for a do nothing…
— Ryan Petty (@rpetty) March 22, 2024
What he didn’t find offensive was when Secret Service personnel quietly visited the school a few weeks ago to learn more about the mass shooting.
“A good visit is one like we had with the United States Secret Service that came through the school building a couple of weeks ago,” Petty said. “I participated in that. It didn’t involve the press or the media, and it wasn’t an opportunity for anyone to do a photo op.”
“What we did with the Secret Service is was that we walked them through what happened that day so that they could learn from that. And I’ll tell you that the team that was there, which included the director of the Secret Service, were moved by what they heard that day,” he added.
Petty went on to describe walking into the classroom where his daughter was killed and showing the Secret Service agents how she was unable to find a safe space to hide.
“We walked them through and explained how the shooter entered the campus, how he went through unlocked doors, how he entered the building, and then how he indiscriminately shot at anything he could see in the hallways and in the classrooms,” he said.
“I was able to go into the classroom Alaina was killed in. And I showed them where she was sitting, and they saw that she was not able to get into a safe space in that classroom, a space where the shooter couldn’t see her. These are all things that I would hope the vice president would take away,” he added.
Andrew Pollack, who also lost a daughter during the mass shooting, is also upset over Harris’ “photo-op” and “campaign kick-off event.”
Tomorrow VP Kamala Harris is touring Stoneman Douglas high school.
She and Joe had a Democrat house and senate for 2 years and did NOTHING to make schools safer.
This is a photo-op and campaign kick-off event. Gross on many levels.
— Andrew Pollack (@AndrewPollackFL) March 22, 2024
Petty, for his part, believes school shootings would be preventable with better communication between schools and law enforcement agencies.
“What we learned is that this was a preventable tragedy, like most of them are, and there are warning signs and behaviors that are exhibited prior to an attack that if action is taken, these individuals that want to come in and attack a school can be diverted down a different path,” he said.
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Author: Vivek Saxena
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