Thursday, 22 February 2018

Trump endorses guns for teachers to stop shootings


US President Donald Trump has said arming teachers could prevent school shootings like that which left 17 people dead last week in Florida. Teachers carrying a concealed gun could end attacks "very quickly", he said. Mr Trump floated the proposal - long-championed by the powerful NRA gun lobby - as emotional survivors of the 14 February massacre urged him to take measures to stop similar attacks. The US leader called for improved background checks on gun buyers.
"It's not going to be talk like it's been in the past," he said.




President Trump listened to pleas for gun reform on Wednesday from about 40 students, teachers and families in the executive mansion's state dining room.  Hundreds of teenagers from the Washington DC suburbs rallied outside at the time - some voicing support for arming teachers.
Andrew Pollack, whose daughter Meadow died in last week's attack - the second-deadliest shooting at a US public school - said: "We, as a country, failed our children."
"It should've been one school shooting and we should've fixed it. And I'm pissed. It's my daughter I'm not going to see again," he went on to say.
Mark Barden - whose son Daniel was killed in the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut - said more guns was not the answer.
"Schoolteachers have more than enough responsibilities right now, than to have to have the awesome responsibility of lethal force to take a life," he said.
"If you had a teacher who was adept at firearms," he said, "they could very well end the attack very quickly."


"Where a teacher would have a concealed gun on them," he said, while acknowledging the plan was controversial, "they would go for special training and they would be there, and you would no longer have a gun-free zone.
On Thursday morning, Mr Trump criticised reporting of his remarks, stressing that he spoke of the need to train teachers properly. Throughout his presidential campaign he endorsed the idea of an armed citizenry as a defence against attacks. But during the 2016 election campaign, he denied that he was in favour of guns in classrooms.

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