US President Donald Trump tweets support for arming teachers after denying he said ‘give teachers guns’
IT HAS been revealed that an armed officer was on duty at the Florida school that was the site of Nikolas Cruz’s massacre, but did not intervene.
AN ARMED officer was on duty at the Florida school where a shooter killed 17 people but never went inside to engage the gunman, authorities have revealed. The officer has been placed under investigation.
The Valentine’s Day shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School by a gunman armed with an AR-15 style assault rifle reignited national debate over gun laws and school safety.
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School resource officer Scot Petersen was armed, in uniform and “clearly” knew there was an active shooter but did “nothing” to intervene, according to Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel.
Security footage shows Petersen “arrive at the west side of building 12” and “take up a position” outside the building that was under attack for more than four minutes, but “he never went in,” Israel said at a news conference.
The officer, Scot Peterson, was suspended without pay and placed under investigation, then chose to resign, Israel said.
When asked what Peterson should have done, Israel said the deputy should have “went in, addressed the killer, killed the killer”.
The sheriff said he was “devastated, sick to my stomach. There are no words. I mean these families lost their children. I’ve been to the funerals. I’ve been to the vigils. There are no words.”
The suspect, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, was jailed on 17 counts of murder and admitted to the attack.
Politicians are under pressure to tighten gun laws in response to the mass shooting.
Meanwhile, survivors vowed to continue their activism, including a March for Our Lives in Washington next month.
TRUMP DEFENDS IDEA TO ARM TEACHERS
The news comes as US President Donald Trump has again showed support for arming “some” American teachers with guns, after earlier denying he said it.
“A ‘gun free’ school is a magnet for bad people,” Mr Trump tweeted on Thursday morning. “ATTACKS WOULD END!”
Mr Trump initially started with criticism of media reports about his comments on Wednesday where he voiced support for arming “adept” teachers to cut short gun attacks on school grounds.
“If you had a teacher with — who was adept at firearms — they could very well end the attack very quickly. ... And we’re going to be looking at it very strongly, and I think a lot of people are going to be opposed to it, I think a lot of people are going to like it,” Mr Trump said during a meeting with survivors and family members of victims of school massacres in Connecticut, Colorado and Florida.
I never said “give teachers guns†like was stated on Fake News @CNN & @NBC. What I said was to look at the possibility of giving “concealed guns to gun adept teachers with military or special training experience - only the best. 20% of teachers, a lot, would now be able to
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 22, 2018
....immediately fire back if a savage sicko came to a school with bad intentions. Highly trained teachers would also serve as a deterrent to the cowards that do this. Far more assets at much less cost than guards. A “gun free†school is a magnet for bad people. ATTACKS WOULD END!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 22, 2018
....History shows that a school shooting lasts, on average, 3 minutes. It takes police & first responders approximately 5 to 8 minutes to get to site of crime. Highly trained, gun adept, teachers/coaches would solve the problem instantly, before police arrive. GREAT DETERRENT!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 22, 2018
....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. Must be offensive, defense alone won’t work!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 22, 2018
“I never said ‘give teachers guns’ like was stated on Fake News @CNN & @NBC. What I said was to look at the possibility of giving “concealed guns to gun adept teachers with military or special training experience — only the best. 20% of teachers, a lot, would now be able to immediately fire back if a savage sicko came to a school with bad intentions,” Mr Trump tweeted.
I will be strongly pushing Comprehensive Background Checks with an emphasis on Mental Health. Raise age to 21 and end sale of Bump Stocks! Congress is in a mood to finally do something on this issue - I hope!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 22, 2018
This would give schools “far more assets at much less cost than guards,” he added.
Soon after, Mr Trump again tweeted his support for the idea, saying police and first responders take about five to eight minutes to get to the site of a crime.
“Highly trained, gun adept, teachers/coaches would solve the problem instantly, before police arrive,” Mr Trump tweeted. “GREAT DETERRENT!”
Mr Trump also tweeted that he would be “strongly pushing Comprehensive Background Checks with an emphasis on Mental Health. Raise age to 21 and end sale of Bump Stocks! “Congress is in a mood to finally do something on this issue — I hope!”
He did endorse a higher minimum age for buying certain rifles and tighter background checks for purchasers, saying “there’s nothing more important than protecting our children,” amid a public outcry for action after the Florida school shooting.
The current federal minimum age for buying or possessing handguns is 21, but the limit is 18 for rifles including assault-type weapons such as the AR-15 used by a former student in last week’s attack in Florida that killed 17 students and staff members.
“We’re going to work on getting the age up to 21 instead of 18,” Mr Trump later said at the White House, adding that he thinks the NRA will back it — despite the group’s stated opposition.
It comes as the head of the National Rifle Association lashed out at critics of the powerful gun lobby, accusing them of exploiting last week’s deadly shooting for political advantage.
In his first public comments since the massacre, NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre accused gun control advocates within the Democratic Party of seeking to roll back the constitutional right to bear arms.
What many people don’t understand, or don’t want to understand, is that Wayne, Chris and the folks who work so hard at the @NRA are Great People and Great American Patriots. They love our Country and will do the right thing. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 22, 2018
“The shameful politicisation of tragedy, it’s a classic strategy right out of the playbook of a poisonous movement,” he told an annual conservative conference, hitting out in turn at supposed “socialists” on the political left, and at the “so-called national news media”.
“For them it’s not a safety issue, it’s a political issue,” he charged. “They hate the NRA. They hate the Second Amendment. They hate individual freedom.”
Mr LaPierre is a fixture at the Conservative Political Action Conference held every year just outside Washington.
Mr Trump is the keynote speaker at the event Friday.
The NRA chief, warmly welcomed by CPAC’s attendees, said the NRA’s millions of members “were all horrified” by the high school massacre, in which a 19-year-old went on a killing spree with a semiautomatic rifle and which has fuelled urgent calls for a toughening of America’s lax gun laws.
But he also advocated for fortifying US schools with armed guards to prevent the future such killings.
“Evil walks among us,” Mr LaPierre said, adding that schools in gun-free zones are “wide open targets for any crazy madman.” He also doubled down on the NRA’s longstanding position that armed Americans were the first line of defense in confronting deadly attacks.
“Lean in, listen to me now, and never forget these words: to stop a bad guy with a gun, it takes a good guy with a gun.”
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