JD Vance has said school shootings are a “fact of life” and called for security in classrooms, not gun control, to them.

The Republican vice presidential nominee told an audience of supporters in Arizona that “if these psychos are going to go after our kids we’ve got to be prepared for it”.

“We don’t have to like the reality that we live in, but it is the reality we live in. We’ve got to deal with it,” he said.

“I don’t like that this is a fact of life, but if you are a psycho and you want to make headlines, you realise that our schools are soft targets.

“And we have got to bolster security at our schools. We’ve got to bolster security so if a psycho wants to walk through the front door and kill a bunch of children they’re not able.”

The comments came in the aftermath of a shooting at Apalachee High School, near Winder, Georgia, on Wednesday.

Two students and two teachers were shot dead. A 14-year-old boy, Colt Gray, has been take into custody and charged with four counts of felony murder.

Prosecutors said on Thursday that his father also faces charges including second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter for allowing his son to possess a weapon.

The incident has reignited an age-old debate about American gun ownership and how best to protect children from shootings in the classroom.

Mr Vance said the four murders in Georgia were a “tragedy” and sent condolences to the families of victims, but reiterated his opposition to gun controls that have been proposed by Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee.

He said that data shows states that have greater gun controls do not have lower incidence of school shootings, and that security in schools was the only way to reduce the vulnerability of children.

Mr Vance is a strong supporter of Second Amendment rights to bear arms under the US Constitution, and both he and Trump have spoken against proposed federal legislation to make it harder to buy guns, or to ban high-powered weapons.

He attracted criticism earlier this year for calling a proposed ban on bump stocks, a device that modifies a semiautomatic weapon to allow it to fire continuously, “a huge distraction”.

‘My daughter’s murder was a fact of life?’

On Thursday Fred Guttenberg, the father of a victim of the Parkland school shooting in 2018, condemned Mr Vance’s comments.

“School shootings are a fact of life? My daughter Jaime’s murder was a fact of life?” he said on X.  

“I can’t wait to make your exit from having any say in our public safety a fact of life.  I can’t wait to vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.”

Last year Mr Guttenberg spoke to The Telegraph about the epidemic of US gun ownership.

Mr Vance’s appearance in Arizona on Thursday was otherwise dedicated to the issue of the US southern border, which he said had been overrun with illegal migration under the Biden administration.

He called for the immediate deportation of undocumented migrants, and tougher policing to crack down on South American cartels operating in Arizona and Texas.