’Shame on you!’ survivor tells Trump at Florida rally

FORT LAUDERDALE: A survivor of the Parkland school shooting called out President Donald Trump on Saturday over his ties to the National Rifle Association (NRA), as several thousand rallied in Florida to demand urgent action on gun control.

Three days after a troubled teen armed with an assault rifle killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Emma Gonzalez, 18, delivered a fiery address to a crowd of students, parents and residents here.

“To every politician taking donations from NRA, shame on you!” she thundered. The crowd chanted in turn: “Shame on you!”

“We are going to be the last mass shooting... We are going to change the law,” she vowed, slamming home the fact 19-year-old gunman Nikolas Cruz was able to legally buy a semi-automatic firearm despite a history of troubling and violent behaviour.

“The question on whether or not people should be allowed to own an automatic weapon is not a political one. It is question of life or death and it needs to stop being a question of politics.

“If the president wants to come up to me and tell me to my face that it was a terrible tragedy and... how nothing is going to be done about it, I’m going to happily ask him how much money he received from the National Rifle Association,” Gonzalez said.

“It doesn’t matter because I already know. Thirty million,” she said, citing the sum spent by NRA to support Trump’s election bid.