Gov. Kim Reynolds reported Wednesday that Iowa really should emphasis on its education and learning system — alternatively than change gun laws — in the aftermath of a March 7 shooting at East Higher Faculty in Des Moines that killed one teenager and wounded two some others.
“I assume the tragedy is our method — our instructional system — is letting these youngsters down,” she claimed. “They ought to have been in faculty. We should really be figuring out sources to help them continue to be there and to assist them get an education and a life where by they can just take care of them selves and their people.”
Reynolds, a Republican, designed her feedback to reporters right after phone calls from some Democratic legislators, pastors and gun security advocates on Tuesday to tighten Iowa gun regulations. Reynolds responded Wednesday Iowa by now has gun regulations, and the guns made use of in the taking pictures had not been accessed lawfully.
The taking pictures, which transpired exterior East Higher Faculty in Des Moines, killed a person 15-year-old boy, Jose Lopez-Perez, and left two girls, ages 16 and 18, in vital ailment. Lopez-Perez was not a college student at the faculty but the two girls were, police claimed.
►A lot more: Family members of target of capturing by East Significant remembers Jose Lopez-Perez, 15, as larger than life
Police have arrested 6 teens aged 14 to 17 in link with the incident on rates of very first-diploma murder and attempted murder.
Sgt. Paul Parizek, a spokesperson for the Des Moines Law enforcement Section, reported Lopez-Perez was the goal of the capturing and the two ladies were not.
Reynolds, who experienced earlier introduced a assertion the working day after the taking pictures in help of the family members associated, explained Wednesday the situation was “heartbreaking.”
“I feel that’s wherever we have to have to aim: Let’s figure out how we get these young ones in school,” Reynolds claimed. “Get them the schooling that they need to have and set them up to be successful, not established them up for, you know, jail or life of crime. And so which is the place we are going to carry on to aim. We have regulations on the textbooks appropriate now for guns.”
Reynolds’ Wednesday feedback drew swift criticism from Property Minority Chief Jennifer Konfrst, D-Windsor Heights, who stated Reynolds is “using this tragedy to vilify academics and travel Iowans aside.”
“Even in the encounter of a tragic school shooting, Governor Reynolds refuses to end playing politics,” Konfrst mentioned. “Her recent remarks putting blame on public educational institutions for the substantial faculty capturing final week are reprehensible.”
Steven Schappaugh, principal of Des Moines’ Roosevelt Superior College, tweeted that the governor is “blaming the academic technique for a tragedy.”
“Her occasion controls funding and assets from state for the academic process … so is she blaming her get together?” he wrote.
On Tuesday, a group of Iowa Democrats joined some advocates of stricter gun legal guidelines to urge legislation, these kinds of as development of universal qualifications checks, right after the incident. President Joe Biden, a Democrat, had also introduced a assertion very last week supporting the loved ones of the victims and decrying gun violence.
Ian Richardson covers the Iowa Statehouse for the Des Moines Register. Attain him at [email protected], at 515-284-8254, or on Twitter at @DMRIanR.
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