DAVID GILBERTPOLITICSOCT 2, 2024 7:48 AM
No, Tim Walz Is Not Friends With School Shooters
(Wired is butthurt).1/2
Right-wing lawmakers, pundits, and trolls have jumped on the moment in the vice presidential debate when Tim Walz said he was “friends with school shooters.”
During the vice presidential debate on Tuesday night, Tim Walz misspoke and said he had “become friends with school shooters.”
A quick search would haverevealed that Walz likely meant to say that he had become friends with the families of school shooting victims. He has repeatedly credited these families—including onstage Tuesday night—with changing his mind on gun control laws, helping him usher in some of America’s most progressive gun safety laws during his time as governor of Minnesota.
But if you were to look at right-wing social media feeds on Tuesday night, you could be forgiven for thinking that Walz sympathized with the perpetrators of some of the worst mass shootings in American history.
Led by former president Donald Trump, right-wing news feeds lit up with out-of-context video clips, memes, and calls for Walz to be disqualified from running, as Trump, who opposes any sort of gun control laws, launched a disingenuous attack on the Democratic vice presidential candidate.
During the debate, both candidates were asked about school shootings and the fact that gun violence is the leading cause of death for children and teens in the US. Vance falsely blamed the prevalence of mental health issues and illegal immigrants for the gun violence crisis in America, and outlined once again why he opposes red-flag gun laws and legislation to ban certain semiautomatic rifles such as AR-15s.
When Walz spoke, he revealed that his own son had witnessed gun violence firsthand. “I think all the parents watching tonight, this is your biggest nightmare,” Walz said. “I got a 17-year-old, and he witnessed a shooting at a community center playing volleyball. Those things don’t leave you.”
Walz, who has enacted red-flag laws, signed legislation to prohibit automatic-weapon-modification devices, and enhanced background checks to curb the spread of gun violence, explained how his viewpoint of gun control was impacted by meeting the families of school shooting victims.
“I sat in my office surrounded by dozens of the Sandy Hook parents, and they were looking at my 7-year-old’s picture on the wall,” said Walz. Their 7-year-olds were dead. And they were asking us to do something. And look, I'm a hunter. I own firearms. The vice president does. We understand that the Second Amendment is there, but our first responsibility is to our kids to figure this out.”
“I sat in that office with those Sandy Hook parents,” said Walz, adding: “I've become friends with school shooters. I've seen it.”
The Harris-Walz campaign did not respond to a request from WIRED to clarify what Walz meant when he made this comment, but it appears likely he meant to say he had become friends with the families of school shooting victims, given his close relationship with many of them in recent years.
On the right, the gaffe was very quickly jumped on to push a disingenuous conspiracy that Walz, who has done more than many lawmakers in recent years to curb gun violence, was in some way compassionate toward school shooters.
“Did Tampon Tim just say he has ‘become friends with school shooters?’” Trump wrote on Truth Social, using the nickname he has given Walz. “He isn’t even qualified to be Governor, let alone Vice President. Walz and Kamala DO NOT HAVE WHAT IT TAKES!”
Trump then posted two videoclips of Walz making the comment and two graphics with Walz’s picture alongside the quote about school shooters. Trump also shared a screenshot of a post on X from Andrew Pollack, the father of a victim of a school shooting, who wrote: “My daughter was killed in the Parkland school shooting. It’s absolutely abhorrent that Tim Walz has befriended school shooters. Disqualifying.” Pollack’s post on X, which quotes a post from the official Trump War Room account, has been viewed 3.8 million times.
Moments later, Trump posted a meme of a mocked-up Trump-Vance yard sign with the tagline “Not Friends of School Shooters”—a meme that was originally posted to X by Laura Loomer, a close ally of Trump who has, until recently, been seen traveling with the former president to campaign events.
Loomer, an antisemitic, far-right troll, took the conspiracy further, asking: “Was @Tim_Walz friends with Thomas Matthew Crooks and Ryan Routh too?”—a reference to the men charged with attempting to assassinate Trump in recent months. Loomer also posted a mock-up poster for the sitcom Friends with the actors’ faces replaced by Walz and a number of mass shooters.
https://www.wired.com/story/vp-debate-tim-walz-friends-school-shooters/