Tim Walz revealed at the vice presidential debate against JD Vance on Tuesday that his son, Gus, witnessed a shooting at a community center while playing volleyball.
“I think all the parents watching tonight, this is just your biggest nightmare,” the Democratic vice presidential nominee said of the nationwide school shooting epidemic.
“Look, I got a 17-year-old, and he witnessed a shooting at a community center playing volleyball,” Walz, 60, revealed. “Those things don’t leave you.”
“Awful,” his Republican counterpart, JD Vance, 40, said into the mic as Walz described his son’s traumatic experience.
Gus Walz went viral during the Democratic National Convention in August for his genuine exuberance as his father accepted the party’s nomination for vice president.
“That’s my dad!” the high school senior yelled as he pointed toward his father, with tears streaming down his face.
The Walz family recently disclosed to People magazine that Gus has a non-verbal learning disorder, ADHD and an anxiety disorder — which they call “his secret power.”
“I 100% believe that Senator Vance hates it,” Tim Walz said of gun violence in schools, extending an olive branch on the issue — despite the Harris-Walz campaign having attacked the GOP vice presidential nominee for claiming school shootings were a “fact of life.”
“First of all, I didn’t know that your 17-year-old witnessed a shooting. I’m sorry about that,” Vance replied.
“I’m sorry about that. Christ have mercy,” the father of three said. “It is awful. And I appreciate what Tim said.”
Walz said if America wants to stop school shootings — the US should look to Finland.
“They don’t have this happen,” the Minnesota governor said. “Even though they have a high gun-ownership rate in the country, there are reasonable things that we can do to make a difference.
“No one’s trying to scaremonger and say, ‘We’re taking your guns.’” Walz argued. “But I ask all of you out there, do you want your schools hardened to look like a fort? Is that what we have to do when we know there’s countries around the world that their children aren’t practicing these types of drills? They’re being kids. We owe it to them to get it fixed.”
Meanwhile, Vance noted that a large percentage of gun violence “is committed with illegally obtained firearms” and suggested that cracking down on illegal immigration could curb gun-related crime.
“We know that thanks to Kamala Harris’s open border, we’ve seen a massive influx in the number of illegal guns run by the Mexican drug cartel,” he said. “So that number then, the amount of illegal guns in our country, is higher today than it was three and a half years ago.”
Vance went on to call for schools to up security in an effort to prevent more massacres.
“We have to make the doors lock better. We have to make the door stronger. We’ve got to make the windows stronger, and of course, we’ve got to increase school resource officers,” he said.
“Because the idea that we can magically wave a wand and take guns out of the hands of bad guys, it just doesn’t fit with recent experience.”
The Ohio senator also explained that addressing the “mental health crisis in this country” could reduce school shootings.
“I don’t think it’s the whole reason why we have such a bad gun violence problem, but I do think it’s a big piece of it,” Vance said.
