Vice President Harris delivers speech at Fisk University
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris made a last-minute trip Friday to Tennessee where she called for tougher firearm laws and criticized the Republican-controlled state House, which a day earlier expelled two Black Democratic lawmakers for their role in a protest calling for more gun control following a school shooting in Nashville.
Harris received wild applause and several standing ovations as she told a crowd at Nashville’s historically Black Fisk University that the so-called Tennessee Three — ousted Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson and a third Democrat, Gloria Johnson, who avoided expulsion by a single vote — were being, in her words, silenced and stifled for standing up for the lives of schoolchildren.
“Let’s understand the underlying issue is about fighting for the safety of our children,” Harris said. “It’s been years now where they are taught to read and write and hide in a closet and be quiet if there’s a mass shooter at their school, where our children, who have God’s capacity to learn and lead, who go to school in fear.”
She called for background checks, red flag laws and restrictions on assault rifles.
“Let’s not fall for the false choice — either you’re in favor of the Second Amendment or you want reasonable gun safety laws,” Harris said. “We can and should do both.”
Harris met privately with Jones, Pearson and Johnson, as well as with other elected officials and young people advocating for tougher gun control laws.
Ahead of the event, students and others were lined up down the block, hoping to enter the school’s Memorial Chapel. Inside several young Black women wore sweaters with the initials for Alpha Kappa Alpha, a Black sorority that Harris…
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