Vance, arguing in favor of more security in schools to prevent shootings while speaking at a rally in Phoenix, said “I don’t like that this is a fact of life . . . but if you are psycho and you want to make headlines, you realize that our schools are soft targets.”

Vance argued that stricter gun laws won’t stop school shootings, and that they happen in states with varying degrees of gun restrictions.

Democrats, including Vice President Kamala Harris, seized on Vance’s “fact of life” line to suggest he was being dismissive about school shootings and the possibility that more gun restrictions could prevent them.

Harris’ official campaign account tweeted that Vance responded to Wednesday’s shooting at a Georgia high school “by saying school shootings are just ‘a fact of life’ and attacking common sense gun safety reform,” and Harris retweeted the post, writing “school shootings are not just a fact of life . . . it doesn’t have to be this way.”

Vance spokesperson William Martin also defended his comments by criticizing the Associated Press for a headline that did not include the full context of Vance’s statement, telling Fox News “this is yet another case of the fake news media brazenly lying about a Republican politician.”

The Associated Press later corrected its initial headline—which read “JD Vance says school shootings are a ‘fact of life,’ calls for better security,”—to read “JD Vance says he laments that school shootings are a ‘fact of life,’” writing on X that the post was updated “to add context to the partial quote from Vance.”