Democratic vice presidential candidate and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz had every candidate’s nightmare come true on a debate stage on Tuesday night, and in perhaps the most macabre way possible: He committed a bad gaffe that everyone will remember — and on school shootings, no less.
During the midst of a question about mass shootings and why Walz flip-flopped on a ban regarding so-called “assault weapons,” the governor told America, “I’ve become friends with school shooters” — a sound bite that immediately set social media ablaze.
Walz made the remarks after saying he changed his position after meeting with parents of the victims of the Sandy Hook school shooting.
“I’ve become friends with school shooters,” he said.
“I was an NRA guy for a long time,” Walz added. “They used to teach gun safety. I’m of an age where my shotgun was in my car, so I could pheasant hunt after football practice. That’s not where we live today.”
He went on to say that most of Minnesota’s firearm deaths “are rural suicides, and we have an epidemic of children getting guns and shooting themselves. And … we should look at all of the issues, making sure folks have healthcare and all that. But I want to be very careful, this idea of stigmatizing mental health, just because you have a mental health issue doesn’t mean you’re violent. And I think what we end up doing is, we start looking for a scapegoat.”
“I’ve become friends with school shooters” – Tim Walz pic.twitter.com/dsnkhKjBxE
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) October 2, 2024
“Sometimes it just is the guns,” Walz added.
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“It’s just the guns. And there are things that you can do about it, but I do think that this is a healthy conversation. I think there’s a capacity to find solutions on this that work. Protect the Second Amendment, protect our children. That’s our priority.”
While it’s clear from context that Walz likely meant to say that he had become friends with those who had lost loved ones in school shootings, it wasn’t the only problematic moment during the debate.
When confronted with just one of his problematic claims on the campaign trail — a statement that he was in China when the Tiananmen Square protests happened — Walz admitted it was an untrue claim.
“I’m a knucklehead at times,” he said.
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