Trump Goes Bold in Desperate Plea to Arm Teachers... "Shootings Will Not Happen Again"
President Donald Trump made a bold claim about preventing school shootings on Sunday, less than two weeks after the deadly shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida.
The president has advocated for several initiatives since the Marjory Stoneman Douglas attack, including a ban on bump stocks, an increased focus on background checks and improved mental health care.
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
Aside from those measures, Trump has urged for arming trained and qualified teachers to protect the students they serve. He made the claim Sunday, in fact, that “shootings will not happen again,” if teachers are armed, The Daily Caller reported.
See the president’s full statement below:
“Armed Educators (and trusted people who work within a school) love our students and will protect them. Very smart people. Must be firearms adept & have annual training. Should get yearly bonus. Shootings will not happen again – a big & very inexpensive deterrent. Up to States,” he wrote.
Armed Educators (and trusted people who work within a school) love our students and will protect them. Very smart people. Must be firearms adept & have annual training. Should get yearly bonus. Shootings will not happen again – a big & very inexpensive deterrent. Up to States.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 24, 2018
President Trump also pushed for arming teachers during his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference near Washington, D.C. on Friday last week.
“Well-trained, gun-adept teachers and coaches” should carry firearms in schools, he told the crowd, CNN reported. “I mean, I don’t want to have a hundred guards with rifles standing all over the school. You do a concealed carry permit. This would be a major deterrent, because these people are inherently cowards.”
….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
The push to arm teachers has come under fire by those who point to the fact that there was already armed security during the Parkland shooting, as well as several past shootings, but the gunman still wasn’t stopped.
Stoneman Douglas had an armed guard. Pulse had an armed guard. Mandalay Bay had enough armed personnel to occupy France. Fort Hood is a military base. https://t.co/Ruy1CfNlbD
— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) February 22, 2018
In this particular case, the armed Douglas Stoneman resource officer, Scot Peterson, stood outside the high school with his gun drawn for several minutes, failing to ever go inside and confront the gunman.
The policy proposal has also been rejected by Florida Governor Rick Scott, who believes the job of protecting students should be left to trained officers and law enforcement.
“I disagree with him,” Scott said on “Fox News Sunday.”
“I believe you’ve got to focus on people that are well trained law enforcement that are trained to do this,” he continued. “I want our teachers to teach. And I want our law enforcement officers to be able to protect the students. I want each group to focus on what they’re good at.”
However, others point out that numerous teachers and staff who dedicate their time to students every day have shown they will sacrifice their lives to protect students, and unlike Peterson, will take action. For example, beloved football coach Aaron Feis died shielding students from the gunfire. Arming teachers and staff like Feis could save lives, others argue.
Further, if there aren’t any armed guards on school grounds, it can take several minutes before law enforcement arrive on the scene. By that point, many lives have already been lost.
While armed Sheriff Officers stay outside the school and did NOTHING to stop the shooter.
This unarmed hero selflessly shielded students from the shooter when he was shot to death.
Coach Aaron Feis is a HERO. pic.twitter.com/WaMlRTncyO
— Uncensored USA 🇺🇸 (@CarlosSimancas) February 25, 2018
Since the Gun-Free School Zones Act, signed into law in November of 1990, many have considered schools to be “soft targets” for gunman. That bill “prohibits any person from knowingly possessing a firearm … at a place the individual knows, or has reasonable cause to believe, is a school zone.”
Arming teachers would make “gun-free zones” a thing of the past. Trump told Fox News, “If they go into a school, a gun-free zone is like target practice for these guys. They see that and that’s what they want. Gun-free zones are very dangerous. The bad guys love gun-free zones.”
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