Sitting ducks

Warnock after Georgia shooting: ‘We’re all sitting ducks’

“The problem is that we have politicians in our country who are beholden to the gun lobby,” Warnock said.

By Mia McCarthy

Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) responding to a school shooting in his state last week, said Americans were “sitting ducks” because of the gun lobby that “lines its pockets with the blood of our children.”

“We’re all sitting ducks,” Warnock said in an interview with Kristen Welker on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday morning. “And any country that allows this to continue without putting forward just common sense gun safety measures is a country that has, in a tragic way, lost its way. Politicians need to realign their values.”

A 14-year-old allegedly opened fire at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, last Wednesday, killing two students and two teachers. The father of the 14-year-old was arrested on various charges the next day.

Warnock said he spent Friday night with the Winder community following the shooting.

“Listen, 14-year-olds don’t need AR-15s, and we need to get these military-style weapons off the streets,” Warnock said. “There is no one single law that will stop all of these tragedies. In a sense, I think we have to broaden the scope of the question because after all we have two mass shootings a day in our country, based on the data just last year. And this does not happen everywhere in the world.”

He added, “The problem is that we have politicians in our country who are beholden to the gun lobby. And either based on ambition or fear, they go to work every day doing their bidding while the gun lobby lines its pockets with the blood of our children.”

Warnock also ripped Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) for saying he regrets these shootings are a “fact of life.” The Ohio senator and running mate of Republican nominee Donald Trump said during a campaign event that schools need better security to prevent these tragedies from happening.

“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. This, again, is a tragic form of American exceptionalism,” Warnock told Welker. “Nowhere else in the world do you have a country that’s not at war do you see this kind of violence. And so we have to ask ourselves, we have to engage in serious soul-searching as Americans. Why does this happen here?’”

Warnock added that there are “people who are mentally sick” and “children who are troubled” in other countries but that these school shootings only happen in the United States. He said arguments against having stricter gun reform being against the Second Amendment is like saying those who want seat belts are against the freedom of being on the road.”

“This only happens here. It’s the guns. This is not a debate between those who believe in the Second Amendment and those who don’t,” Warnock said. “It is to the gun lobby’s advantage that this has become a kind of culture war.”