Gun-control advocates angered by Trump report on preventing school shootings
Gun-control advocates have condemned a Trump administration report into the prevention of school shootings, which suggested campuses should consider arming staff, but not restricting firearms’ availability.
It was published this week in response to the February school shooting in Parkland, Florida, in which 17 students and staff were murdered, sparking a national debate over gun control.
Death-toll data from the Centres for Disease Control showed 39,773 people in the US were killed by guns last year, the highest recorded by its database, which began in 1979.
The Federal Commission on School Safety’s report, led by the department of US Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, suggests about 100 ways to improve school safety, which include allowing some school employees to carry weapons and letting police confiscate guns from potentially violent students.
But it dismissed the idea of raising the minimum age for buying guns, which is 18 for a handgun, suggesting that those responsible for most attacks obtained their firearms illegally.
The report is a letdown for children afraid of coming to school, said Robin Lloyd of Giffords, the lobby group formed by former congresswoman Gabby Giffords, who was shot 10 years in Tucson, Arizona.
“We don’t need more school personnel roaming hallways with firearms,” Ms Lloyd said. “We do need real solutions to stop gun violence.
“It’s time for Secretary DeVos and President Trump to recognise the importance of passing laws proven to make it harder for dangerous people to ever get a gun and cause others harm.”
The commission was set up after the attack at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, on February 14, when a former student went on a deadly rampage. Its young survivors became high-profile gun-control advocates.
They demanded an increase in the minimum age of gun ownership to 21, universal background checks, barring anyone guilty of domestic violence from having guns, and banning “bump stocks”, modifications that allow assault rifles to fire as rapidly as automatic weapons.
While the report fell short of their demands, they could celebrate one victory. The Trump administration said on Tuesday it was banning bump stocks.
The move brought the immediate threat of legal action by Gun Owners of America. It said the ban would lead to further restrictions on weapons and that bump stocks were not the same as machineguns, which are already banned.
But the proposals avoided the big questions and echoed Mr Trump’s stance on gun control.
Speaking in the White House with victims of gun violence, Mr Trump suggested the media should refrain from naming gunmen in what he called a “no-notoriety” rule. He said that more armed responders could make a crucial difference.
“It’s critical to have armed personnel available at a moment’s notice,” Mr Trump said. “These are people, teachers in many cases, that are the highest trained that you can get. People that are natural to firearms. This is critical to the hardening of our schools against attack.”
One of the most contentious proposals is rolling back Barack Obama’s guidance that asks schools not to suspend, expel or report students to police except in the most serious cases.
That came in for criticism after the Parkland shooting, when conservatives argued that teachers were being discouraged from alerting of possible threats.
Last year’s US death toll included about 60 per cent suicides, with another 37 per cent related to murders, the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence said.
“In 2017, nearly 109 people died every single day from gun violence,” said Adelyn Allchin, the group’s director of publichealth research.
“Gun violence is a publichealth epidemic that requires a public-health solution, which is why we must immediately enact and implement evidence-based interventions, like permit-to-purchase policies and extreme risk laws.”
In 2017, nearly 109 people died every single day from gun violence. Gun violence is a publichealth epidemic ADELYN ALLCHIN Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence