U.S. President Donald Trump promised strong background checks and mental health screenings for gun buyers as he heard pleas from survivors of the recent Florida school shooting and families affected at the White House on Wednesday.
“We’re going to be very strong on background checks … very strong emphasis on the mental health,” Trump told students and family members affected by last week’s high school massacre in Florida and other mass shootings in the past.
The president suggested that some educators could be trained in the use of firearms to deter potential shooters.
“You can’t have 100 security guards in Stoneman Douglas,” he said, referring to the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida where 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz killed 14 students and three teachers with an AR-15- style assault rifle last week.
“It would be teachers and coaches,” Trump said, suggesting that arming 20 percent of the teaching force could be a solution. He also said that if the school’s assistant football coach Aaron Feis, who shielded students from being shot but died of gunshots himself, had a firearm in his locker, he could have shot Cruz.
However, Trump conceded that concealed carry — carrying a concealed firearm in public — “only works” with people who are “very adept at using firearms.”
