On Thursday, 2020 presidential contender Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA), sensing she is being left behind in the race and eager to burnish her leftist credentials, blamed the NRA for endangering schoolchildren, tweeting, “Our children shouldn’t go to school worried they will have to run for their lives from an active shooter. We need leaders who will stand up to the NRA and fight to keep our kids safe from gun violence.”
NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch blasted Harris for her tweet, writing, “This is abhorrent. Millions of NRA members are also parents — myself included. You know what keeps kids safe? Prosecuting repeat offenders who have felony gun charges and drive crime. Yet while AG your state was at the bottom of this list. You have zero consistency on safety.”
Last November, Harris tweeted, “No matter what community you live in, from Parkland to Chicago to South Los Angeles, no one is immune from the gun violence epidemic. There have been too many tragedies. We need Congress to act.”
Harris ignored the fact that the massacre in Parkland, Florida at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School occurred in a gun-free zone.
After the February 2018 massacre, Harris attacked the NRA, tweeting, “I am not going to be silenced by attacks from the NRA or anyone else — and neither will my Senate colleagues or the students from Stoneman Douglas. It’s time to stand up to the gun lobby and keep our communities safe. #NeverAgain.”
In December 2012, the NRA introduced its School Shield Task Force after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. As Independent Journal Review reported in 2018:
In April 2013, the NRA published a report with the findings of the task force’s initial investigation, along with eight recommendations on best practices for school security. Those recommendations included implementing a model training program that would teach school resources officers how to respond in crisis situations, a proposal to change state laws where necessary so that a “selected school staff member” would be allowed to carry firearms in schools, the creation of a pilot program on “threat assessment and mental health,” and tougher requirements for schools on safety measures, among others.
Speaking at a Des Moines, Iowa Townhall in January, 2019, Harris pontificated about guns, and of course, found a way to attack the NRA, calling the organization a “paper tiger”:
You know, here’s the thing. We have got to have smart gun safety laws in this country. And we’ve got to stop buying this false choice. You can be in favor of the Second Amendment and also understand that there is no reason in a civil society that we have assault weapons around communities that can kill babies and police officers. Something like universal background checks. It makes perfect sense that you might want to know before someone can buy a weapon that can kill another human being, you might want to know, have they been convicted of a felony where they committed violence? That’s just reasonable.
You might want to know, before they can buy that gun, if a court has found them to be a danger to themselves or others. You just might want to know. That’s reasonable. But here’s the thing. And I’m just going to be very, very blunt about this. You know, for years I’ve asked folks in D.C., you know, is the NRA real or is it a paper tiger? Like, what’s the deal there?