Following a “listening session” on Thursday with victims of school shootings including the one last week in Parkland, Florida, Donald Trump said he backs arming teachers.
President Trump on concealed carry for teachers: "If you had a teacher who was adept at firearms, they could very well end the attack very quickly." pic.twitter.com/dQWl1foLii
— NBC News (@NBCNews) February 21, 2018
Said Trump: “If you had a teacher who was adept at firearms, they could very well end the attack very quickly.”
In May 2016, Trump said exactly the opposite, tweeting: “Crooked Hillary said that I want guns brought into the school classroom. Wrong!”
Crooked Hillary said that I want guns brought into the school classroom. Wrong!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 22, 2016
Trump appeared to suggest that if Aaron Feis, an assistant football coach who died while shielding students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, was armed, the gunman would have been stopped sooner: “If the coach had a firearm in his locker when he ran at this guy … 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,” Trump said.
Trump then went on to weigh the merits of eliminating gun-free zones in schools and allowing armed teachers who have “special training” to access their firearm in schools.
“Gun-free zone to a maniac, because they're all cowards … is ‘Let's go in and let's attack because bullets aren't coming back at us,'” Trump said. “If you do this, and a lot of people are talking about it, and it's certainly a point that we'll discuss, but concealed-carry for teachers and for people of talent, of that type of talent.”
