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Trump Says He Supports Giving Guns Only to Teachers With Special Training Trump Promotes Arming Teachers, but Rejects Active Shooter Drills
(about 2 hours later)
WASHINGTON — President Trump took to Twitter on Thursday morning to clarify his views on arming teachers to fight deadly school shootings, saying that he wants to give “concealed guns” to teachers who have “military or special training experience.” He also restated his policy agenda for school safety ahead of a meeting with state and local officials later in the day. WASHINGTON — President Trump on Thursday intensified his calls for arming highly trained teachers as part of an effort to fortify schools against shooting massacres like the one that occurred in Parkland, Fla., last week, even as he denounced active shooter drills that try to prepare students to survive a rampage.
“I want certain highly adept people, people who understand weaponry, guns” to have a permit to carry concealed firearms in schools, Mr. Trump said during his second White House meeting in two days to discuss how to respond to the shooting that killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
Teachers who were qualified to handle a weapon — Mr. Trump estimated between 10 percent and 40 percent — would receive “a little bit of a bonus,” he said, adding, that he would devote federal money to training them.
“I want my schools protected just like I want my banks protected,” the president said.
Mr. Trump, who is under intense pressure to embrace stiffer gun restrictions in the wake of the Parkland tragedy, appears to have seized instead upon the idea of giving educators weapons, a proposal backed by the National Rifle Association, which has pressed to expand the right to carry a concealed firearm nationwide.
The president also said he believed the powerful gun lobby would support a move to raise the age threshold for purchasing certain firearms to 21 from 18, as well as enhanced background checks for people seeking to buy guns.
The president made his comments as he convened law enforcement, state and local officials at the White House to discuss a range of proposals that could prevent future school shooting massacres. They came a day after he held an emotional session at the White House with parents, students and teachers affected by the Parkland rampage as well as other school shootings, who begged him to take action, and as a wave of student-led activism continued to spread in favor of changing gun laws.
“There’s a tremendous feeling that we want to get something done,” Mr. Trump said in the Roosevelt Room on Thursday, adding that the N.R.A. — which has strongly backed him — shares the sentiment. “We’re going to take action,” he said.
The president’s apparent confidence that Congress would be able to agree on and pass gun safety legislation flew in the face of decades of experience, in which the outrage and calls to action that follow a horrific shooting have dissipated quickly amid powerful resistance from the pro-gun lobby, and changes in the law have ultimately proven impossible.
Mr. Trump said he was not in favor of one measure that schools around the nation have increasingly taken to defend themselves and their students against school shooters: holding drills to practice what to do.
“Active shooter drills is a very negative thing,” Mr. Trump said after Pam Stewart, the Florida Department of Education commissioner, mentioned such preparations. “I don’t like it. I’d much rather have a hardened school.”
Mr. Trump added that active shooter drills were “crazy,” and “very hard on children.”
The president’s comments came after he spent the morning trying to clarify his view on arming teachers, a proposal he floated at Wednesday’s session with survivors, and which has met with stiff opposition. In a series of Twitter messages, he said he would arm teachers who have “military or special training experience.”
“A ‘gun free’ school is a magnet for bad people. ATTACKS WOULD END,” Mr. Trump said.“A ‘gun free’ school is a magnet for bad people. ATTACKS WOULD END,” Mr. Trump said.
In a series of Twitter posts, Mr. Trump said he was clarifying news reports that said he wanted to arm teachers, a proposal that has been met with skepticism and rejection. The president also said he wants to improve background checks for firearms purchases, raise the age of people who are permitted to buy assault rifles to 21 from 18 and ban equipment that can turn a semiautomatic rifle into an automatic one. “If a potential ‘sicko shooter’ knows that a school has a large number of very weapons talented teachers (and others) who will be instantly shooting, the sicko will NEVER attack that school. Cowards won’t go there…problem solved,” Mr. Trump said.
“If a potential ‘sicko shooter’ knows that a school has a large number of very weapons talented teachers (and others) who will be instantly shooting, the sicko will NEVER attack that school. Cowards won’t go there...problem solved,” Mr. Trump said. Mr. Trump, who campaigned with the support of the N.R.A. and has been an ardent advocate of gun rights, is facing resistance from the powerful lobbying group on raising the minimum age to purchase assault rifles. But he defended the gun lobby on Thursday, and predicted that they would side with him on the issue.
The president’s comments came a week after a gunman opened fire with an AR-15-style assault rifle at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., where he killed 17 people. The shooting revived the gun control debate, and high school students joined the lobbying efforts for new gun restrictions. “I don’t think I’ll be going up against them,” Mr. Trump said. “They’re good people.”
Mr. Trump, who campaigned with the support of the National Rifle Association and has been an advocate of gun rights, is facing resistance from the powerful lobbying group on raising the minimum age to purchase assault rifles. In a tweet earlier on Thursday, Mr. Trump said the N.R.A. “will do the right thing.”
But he defended the N.R.A. in a tweet on Thursday and said it “will do the right thing.”
The head of the N.R.A., Wayne LaPierre, spoke publicly on Thursday for the first time since the Parkland shooting, and criticized Democrats calling for more gun control laws.The head of the N.R.A., Wayne LaPierre, spoke publicly on Thursday for the first time since the Parkland shooting, and criticized Democrats calling for more gun control laws.
“Their goal is to eliminate the Second Amendment and our firearms freedoms so they can eradicate all individual freedoms,” Mr. LaPierre said, speaking at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference to an audience that typically bristles at the notion of restricting Second Amendment rights.“Their goal is to eliminate the Second Amendment and our firearms freedoms so they can eradicate all individual freedoms,” Mr. LaPierre said, speaking at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference to an audience that typically bristles at the notion of restricting Second Amendment rights.
The president met on Wednesday with survivors of school shootings and family members of victims, and faced emotional pleas to do something to stop the violence. Arming teachers is not a new concept. The N.R.A. advocated for it in the wake of the 2012 mass shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., that left 20 children dead.
During the White House event on Wednesday, Mr. Trump offered his ideas, including arming teachers and other school employees.
“It only works where you have people very adept at using firearms, of which you have many, and it would be teachers and coaches,” he said.
“The coach had a firearm in his locker when he ran at this guy — that coach was very brave. Saved a lot of lives, I suspect,” Mr. Trump said, apparently referring to Aaron Feis, a coach at Stoneman Douglas who survivors say died while shielding students from gunfire. "But if he had a firearm, he wouldn’t have had to run, he would have shot and that would have been the end of it.”
Arming teachers is not a new concept. The N.R.A. advocated for this in the wake of the 2012 mass shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., that left 20 children dead.
The president also expressed confidence that Congress would agree on and pass gun safety legislation, although it has been an impossible feat in recent years.