A mass shooting at a high school in Georgia, where a gunman killed two teachers and two students Wednesday, reignited an all-too-familiar debate in Washington: Advocates for tighter regulation and their political allies decried the state of U.S. gun policy, while opponents directed blame at the individual shooter and society at large.
As this all unfolds during an unprecedented sprint for the White House, gun control advocates see a chance for their issue to actually take hold. Kamala Harris stopped in the middle of a New Hampshire rally to go “off-script” and address the shooting in Georgia. Just weeks ago, the Democratic National Convention also featured former prominent gun violence survivors.
“This is the first presidential campaign where gun safety has been held up as a core issue,” Giffords Executive Director Emma Brown told NOTUS said of Harris’ presidential campaign right before the convention. “That’s a really big deal for the progress that we’ve made on gun violence prevention in the last decade.”