President Trump on Saturday renewed his calls to arm highly trained teachers in a bid to prevent school shootings, but said that such decisions should ultimately be left to individual states.
“Armed Educators (and trusted people who work within a school) love our students and will protect them,” he tweeted. “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.”
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Trump has called for arming teachers a number of times in recent days, arguing that if educators at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., had firearms, they would have “shot the hell” out of a gunman that opened fire on the campus last week.
In a freewheeling speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland on Friday, Trump said that armed teachers would be better prepared than security guards to respond to school shootings because they “love their students.”
The shooting at the South Florida high school left 17 people dead and 14 others injured. The revelation this week that an armed resource officer at the school remained outside while the shooting took place has raised questions about the efficacy of arming personnel on school campuses.
Trump has also signaled support for measures that would strengthen the nation’s background check system for gun buyers and raise the minimum age for purchasing firearms from 18 to 21.
But the notion of arming teachers is considered by most Democrats to be a non-starter in the gun control debate.