Allies urge Trump to not go further on gun control measures

“We’re going to do strong background checks”.

“You can’t hire enough security guards.”, he said, according to a pool report released by the White House. “And once you do this, you will have a situation where all of a sudden this disgusting plague will stop”.

Regardless of what percentage or level of training Trump was suggesting for this “solution”, a host of current and former educators had plenty to say about the proposal, with many tearing it to shreds as a bogus solution.

“That coach was very courageous, saved a lot of lives, I suspect”, Trump said, apparently referring to Aaron Feis, a coach at Stoneman Douglas who reportedly died using his body as a shield to protect students.

The meeting included six students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where 17 students and educators were killed on Feb 14 by a gunman with an AR-15 semi-automatic assault rifle in the second-deadliest shooting at a United States public school.

Even with President Donald Trump’s support, the idea of arming school teachers is facing resistance.

Mr Trump also said he was open to looking at age limits, among other measures, and lamented the closure of many mental institutions that helped assess violent people. “And like Mr. President said, if you could find 20% of maybe retired law enforcement officers, or a teacher who could go through discreet training to carry a firearm around his waist, it could’ve been a very different situation”, Hunter Pollack, one of Meadow Pollack’s brothers, said.

Trump said designating schools as “gun-free zones” puts students in “far more danger”.

He also disparaged school shooting drills, saying they were tough on the kids.

“I think that’s scary”.

A spokesman later explained that the president’s issue is not with the drills themselves. “People like to blame them”.

“History shows that a school shooting lasts, on average, 3 minutes”, he went on during several tweets.

Mr. Trump said he was confident that the National Rifle Association would get behind his plans, including the change in the minimum age to purchase long guns.

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.

Trump, in the Thursday meeting, also suggested popular culture could be a contributing factor for such violence.

“This country is discussing it in ways that I have never seen before and the voice of young people is much louder”. If you harden the sites, you’re not going to have this problem.