AFT President and Survivor Respond to Apalachee High School Mass Shooting

WASHINGTON—Following a tragic mass shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Ga., AFT President Randi Weingarten and Abbey Clements, executive director of Teachers Unify to End Gun Violence and a survivor of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, released a joint statement:

“Today’s horrifying event is every parent’s, teacher’s, student’s, and community’s worst nightmare. A place designed to be safe and welcoming became a scene of violence.

“The individuals who experienced this tragedy at Apalachee High School, along with their families and friends, will be forever changed.

“Our hearts are shattered. We grieve for those who were killed, injured, or traumatized in this latest school shooting, their families, and the wider Winder, Ga., community, which will require support and resources for recovery.

“Those who resist commonsense gun safety measures have let down our children and our nation.

“We must take necessary actions to prevent this from happening to another school, family, or community.

“We need to remove weapons of war from our streets, invest in community violence intervention programs, enforce background checks and safe-storage laws, ban high-capacity magazines, and implement more extreme risk protection laws.

“The responsibility of this public health crisis should not rest solely on teachers, students, and parents. It will require a collective effort from all of us.”

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The AFT represents 1.8 million individuals, including pre-K through 12th-grade teachers, paraprofessionals, and school-related personnel, higher education faculty and professional staff, federal, state, and local government employees, nurses and healthcare workers, and early childhood educators.