Less than an hour after news of a mass shooting at a high school in Southern California broke on Thursday, Democratic candidates for president and other lawmakers were calling for stricter gun control laws.
“The obvious point is that part of what we all have to say is enough is enough, and we need reasonable gun safety laws in our country,” California Sen. Kamala Harris said on CNN as live pictures of the active shooting investigation played on the screen. “Stop with the nonsense.”
Authorities in Santa Clarita, California, said the shooting occurred on the sprawling campus just north of Los Angeles just before the school day began at Saugus High School. At least one student is dead, and several others were reported injured, police said. The suspect suffered a self-inflicted gunshot wound and was taken into police custody.
Police have not released any information regarding the weapon that was used or a possible motive.
“We don’t yet have all the details of the horrifying events in Santa Clarita,” South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg tweeted as the events unfolded. “But we do know that in America today, children are scared to go to school. Parents and teachers are terrified. And that can’t stand.”
Harris and Buttigieg are not the only public figures to have weighed in on the shooting before authorities have laid out the facts of the case.
“To me, it just says with complete and utter clarity, we don’t have a choice but to flip the Senate and to get somebody in the White House who is going to make this a priority,” said former Rep. Katie Hill, a California Democrat who graduated from Saugus High School in 2004. “So, regardless of your other political beliefs, if you think that the safety of our kids matter, then that’s to me what needs to get you to the polls.”
We don’t yet have all the details of the horrifying events in Santa Clarita. But we do know that in America today, children are scared to go to school. Parents and teachers are terrified. And that can’t stand. It is time to hold the NRA and our leaders in Washington accountable.
— Pete Buttigieg (@PeteButtigieg) November 14, 2019
Harris has advocated for a controversial mandatory gun buyback program and vowed in the early days of her campaign for president to take executive action to get meaningful gun legislation passed.
“We support the Second Amendment,” she said. “But there is no reason for weapons of war to be on the streets of a civil society.”
Buttigieg has promised that if he is elected president, he will take on the corporate gun lobby, an effort he says would seriously curb gun violence and cut down on the number of mass shootings in schools each year.
“It is time to hold the NRA and our leaders in Washington accountable,” he said.
Rep. Sean Maloney, a Democrat from New York, laid the blame for the rise in mass school shootings at the feet of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
“If he wants to pass something else and take it to conference and have a compromise, fine. But the status quo is broken,” Maloney said on MSNBC. “Our kids aren’t safe in school. But of course, it is not just schools; it is places of worship and nightclubs. How many times do we need to see this happen?”
Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts said students should not have to “live in fear” of dying as the result of a mass shooting.
“We must act now to end gun violence,” she said.
