President Trump offered a full-throated defense of arming teachers and school staff in the wake of last week’s school shooting in Florida, despite opposition from law enforcement groups and teachers' unions who warn that more guns in schools would only make them more dangerous.
One day after an emotional session with survivors of the high school shooting in Parkland, Fla., Trump praised the National Rifle Association and insisted in a series of tweets that "highly trained" teachers and coaches should be allowed to carry weapons at schools.
At a meeting later Thursday with law enforcement and school officials from around the country, Trump suggested staff who are trained and carry a weapon could even get “a little bit of a bonus" for making their schools safer.
The NRA chief Wayne LaPierre, speaking at the annual gathering of the Conservative Political Action Conference immediately endorsed Trump's call to "harden our schools" but did not specify that the teachers themselves should have guns.
Yet Trump also broke with the NRA to call for an increase in the age limit for gun buyers from 18 to 21.
The president's tweets came one day after an emotional "listening session" with survivors of the Feb. 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High school in Parkland, Fla. Trump has since called for stronger background checks and mental health screens for gun buyers.
During the 70-minute session Wednesday, Trump touted the idea of arming school staff as a key deterrent that would have stopped the Florida massacre.
"If the coach had a firearm in his locker when he ran at this guy ... he wouldn't have had to run," the president told the survivors and their families. He was referring to Aaron Feis, an assistant football coach who died shielding Parkland students from gunman Nikolas Cruz. "He would have shot and that would have been the end of it."
Yet law enforcement groups immediately pushed back on the idea of a program to arm teachers.
“I don’t know of any police chief who believes this is a good idea," said Richard Myers, executive director of a law enforcement group Major Cities Chiefs Association. "Police officers receive months of firearms training; they get instruction on decision-making and de-escalation. Even with all of that, police have been criticized that they have been too quick to use deadly force."
The National Education Association, the largest teachers' union with some 3 million members, also rejected the idea.
“Bringing more guns into our schools does nothing to protect our students and educators from gun violence," NEA President Lily Eskelsen García said. "We need solutions that will keep guns out of the hands of those who want to use them to massacre innocent children and educators. Arming teachers does nothing to prevent that."
A poll the NEA conducted of its members in January 2013 following the Sandy Hook Elementary massacre in Connecticut massacre found that 68 percent opposed the idea of arming teachers and staff even if they received training.
The NRA has long proposed more guns at schools to protect them from violence. And Trump on Thursday specifically praised the gun advocacy group, calling its leaders "Great People and Great American Patriots."
On Thursday, Trump clarified that maybe 20% of teachers should have the ability to "immediately fire back if a savage sicko came to a school with bad intentions." Highly trained teachers, he continued, would also serve as a "deterrent to the cowards that do this. Far more assets at much less cost than guards."
Trump said school shootings often end before police and first responders have time to arrive. "Highly trained, gun adept, teachers/coaches would solve the problem instantly, before police arrive," he said.
Since the Parkland shooting, Trump has endorsed the idea of expanded background checks for potential gun buyers, especially ones with mental health problems, and he reiterated this stance on Thursday.
"Congress is in a mood to finally do something on this issue - I hope!" he tweeted.
Yet his proposal to raise the age limit for gun buyers is sure to draw scrutiny from the NRA. On Wednesday the group pushed back on raising the age on assault rifle purchases, saying it would deprive young people of "their constitutional right to self-protection."
At the Thursday meeting in the White House with government officials, Trump seemed confident the NRA would drop its opposition.
"It should all be at 21," he said. "And the NRA will back it."
In a followup to his meeting with students and parents, Trump plans to discuss school safety at the White House on Thursday with invited state and local officials.
Trump has also ordered his Justice Department to issue new regulations to ban bump stocks and other devices designed to convert guns into rapid-firing automatic weapons.
Critics said Trump's ideas would do nothing to remove military-style weapons from the nation's streets.
"The focus on mental illness is a distraction by Trump and the NRA," tweeted David Rothkopf, a senior fellow at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
