Vice President Kamala Harris on Saturday toured the still-bloody and bullet-pocked classroom constructing in Parkland, Fla., the place a gunman killed 14 college students and three workers members in 2018, utilizing the grim backdrop to announce a brand new federal useful resource heart and to name for stricter enforcement of gun legal guidelines.
The freshman constructing at Marjory Stoneman Douglas Excessive Faculty had been preserved as proof for legal trials and is about to be demolished this summer season. For now, it stays a memorial to probably the most surprising mass shootings within the historical past of the US.
In remarks after taking her tour and assembly for greater than an hour with members of the family of victims of the assault, Ms. Harris mentioned the expertise had been a compelling one.
“Let us, through the courage and the call to action of these families, find it in ourselves to consider what they’ve been through as some level of motivation and inspiration for all of us,” she mentioned.
“This school is soon going to be torn down,” the vp added. “But the memory of it will never be erased.”
Ms. Harris mentioned the assault, carried out by a former pupil with a historical past of psychological well being and habits issues, ought to immediate officers across the nation to embrace native red-flag legal guidelines. These permit courts to quickly seize firearms and different harmful weapons after they imagine an individual could also be a risk to themselves or others. The Parkland shooter had bought his gun legally.
In her remarks, Ms. Harris introduced the creation of the Nationwide Excessive Threat Safety Order Useful resource Heart, which White Home officers mentioned would offer coaching and technical help to states as they work to implement their red-flag legal guidelines.
“Red-flag laws are simply designed to allow communities a vehicle through which they can share, and have somewhere to share it, information about the concern about the potential danger or the crying out for help of an individual,” she mentioned.
In her temporary remarks, Ms. Harris mentioned that solely 21 states had handed red-flag legal guidelines and that solely six of these had accepted the Biden administration’s provide of monetary assets to assist implement them.
“I challenge the others: ‘Come on over. We’ve got some resources for you to help you implement the work that you have done,’” she mentioned.
The go to by Ms. Harris to the college is a part of the administration’s broader effort to extend gun management measures as the US continues to undergo common episodes of devastating gun violence, typically concentrating on younger individuals in faculties.
In 2022, President Biden signed into legislation the first significant federal gun control measure in decades. The legislation expanded the background test system for potential gun patrons beneath the age of 21, gave authorities as much as 10 enterprise days to look at juvenile and psychological well being data and put aside hundreds of thousands of {dollars} so states can fund intervention packages.
However shootings have continued at a horrific tempo since then. Scores of individuals have been killed in mass shootings in Lewiston, Maine; Monterey Park, Calif.; Louisville, Ky.; Hollywood, Fla.; and lots of different cities throughout the nation.
Ms. Harris mentioned that should change. However she expressed willpower to proceed preventing the political gridlock in Washington, the place Republicans and a few Democrats on Capitol Hill have lengthy blocked extra aggressive measures, like a ban on assault-style weapons which might be typically used within the deadliest mass shootings.
“I will continue to advocate,” she mentioned. “Well, what we must do in terms of universal background checks, an assault weapons ban, what we must continue to do to treat diagnose and treat trauma in our communities.”
Reporters weren’t allowed to hitch Ms. Harris on her tour of the classroom constructing the place the assaults had taken place, or to listen to her conversations with the households.
Previous descriptions of the constructing included blood stains from the victims nonetheless on the partitions, glass shattered from bullets on the ground, and books, paper and different faculty provides strewn about as they have been on that grim day.
Jurors within the trial of Nikolas Cruz, the convicted shooter, have been taken on a tour of the constructing in the summertime of 2022 as they deliberated over his punishment. (He was sentenced to life in jail with out the opportunity of parole.)
Later, the college district introduced that it might demolish the constructing.
“Broward County Public Schools reached this decision in consultation with health and safety experts, and out of concern for the well-being of students and staff on campus,” officers mentioned in a press release on the time. “As we continue to heal, we remain steadfast in our commitment to supporting the Marjory Stoneman Douglas community.”
