The father of a victim of the horrific Parkland school shooting slammed Vice President Kamala Harris for a “photo op” appearance at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School to “push an agenda.”
Vice President Harris appeared at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Saturday. Harris used the chilling backdrop of the school terrorized by a mass shooter to announce two gun control actions devised by the Biden administration.
Harris noted that the school appears to be “frozen in time.” The macabre school building still has bullet-pocked walls, shoes left behind by fleeing students, and floors covered in blood of the casualties and the 17 victims who were injured.
Harris touted the new National Extreme Risk Protection Order Resource Center created by President Joe Biden’sDepartment of Justice. The new entity will train state and local officials on procedures to apply red flag laws to confiscate firearms from gun owners who are a threat to themselves or others. As Blaze News reported on Saturday, conservatives bashed the new center that intends to bolster red flag laws to confiscate firearms from threatening gun owners.
Harris also boasted the Biden administration’s $750 million grant program that provides technical assistance and training to the 21 states and the District of Columbia that have enacted red flag laws.
The White House press release states: “The Biden-Harris Administration made $750 million in federal funding to implement state crisis intervention programs, which includes red flag programs, mental health courts, drug courts, and veteran treatment courts.”
“Harris also called on both Congress and states without red flag laws to adopt them,” according to the Associated Press.
Critics have pointed out that red flag laws allow the government to confiscate firearms from legal gun owners without due process.
On Feb. 14, 2018, a mass shooter took the lives of 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. One of the fatal victims of the tragic Parkland school shooting was 14-year-old Alaina Petty.
Ryan Petty, the father of Alaina, was critical of Harris using the school to “push an agenda.”
Petty told Fox News, “The vice president and the White House’s Office of Gun Violence Prevention made it very clear to families early on that nothing short of new gun control was going to satisfy them in protecting our nation’s schools. And that is just a slap in the face to those of us that have worked for six years now to try to protect our nation’s schools.”
“There are so many ways that we can protect our kids and our teachers at school that don’t require the infringement on the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding gun owners around the country,” Petty added. “But the vice president and the Office of Gun Violence Prevention don’t want to hear any of those solutions. What they want to do is create an opportunity for the vice president to spout gun control talking points at a site that, quite frankly, is hallowed ground at this point.”
The distraught father declared, “What’s frustrating to me is that this building should have been demolished years ago, and it’s now being used as a photo op for politicians that want to push an agenda.”
In recent months, the site of the school shooting massacre has been visited frequently by government officials.
The AP reported, “Education Secretary Miguel Cardona toured it in January, and several members of Congress, mostly Democrats, have gone through since law enforcement returned custody of the building to the school district last summer. FBI Director Christopher Wray and Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle visited the building in recent days.”
Petty continued, “But politicians, quite frankly, don’t understand what it takes to protect our nation’s schools. They don’t understand the causes of the Parkland tragedy. They don’t understand what led to the tragedy and are just there to push their gun control agenda. I’m tired of it. It needs to stop. The building needs to be demolished.”
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School is scheduled to be demolished this summer.
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Source: TheBlaze
