CELEBS: WON’T WE EVER STOP GUN MADNESS?
VALENTINE’S DAY MASSACRE: FURY AT NEW AMERICAN HIGH SCHOOL BLOODBATH
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A-LISTERS Kim Kardashian and Ellen DeGeneres led the celebrity outcry last night over the Florida school massacre.
Furious stars called for stricter gun control after the Valentine’s Day bloodbath left 17 people dead.
Nikolas Cruz, an autistic 19-year-old obsessed with firearms, stormed Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland on Wednesday armed with an AR-15 rifle.
It is dubbed the “weapon of mass murderers” after being used in a spate of deadly attacks.
The slaughter brings the number of school shootings to 18 this year, just six weeks into 2018 – more than twice the number carried out by this time last year.
President Donald Trump faced a furious backlash from leading celebrities after tweeting his “prayers son passed away from his gunshot wound. My grief for this family and the many others knows no bounds.
“I’m so sorry our leaders are worthless.
“I’m so sorry we are bound to repeat this again.”
The atrocity was the deadliest school shooting since 26 people died in a 2012 rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut.
Mr Trump has repeatedly defended the right of US citizens to carry guns for their own “security”. But he faced the wrath of telly host Piers Morgan who branded his White House pal a “sicko”.
He added: “It’s spineless and cowardly, and you know it.”
Mr Trump claimed “mentally disturbed” gunman Cruz should have been reported to the authorities before the attack.
But he resisted calls for greater gun control measures. The president claimed last month that terror attacks in Britain would have been less severe if UK citizens had guns.
He said: “If they had the bullets going in the opposite direction, you would have saved a lot of lives.”
Mr Trump had overturned a law implemented by predecessor Barack Obama which blocked the mentally ill from buying guns.
Gun control organisation Everytown said there had been 291 school shootings since 2013, or one a week.
Spokeswoman Sarah Tofte said: “When you look at all the ways children are impacted by gun violence, you realise what a tremendous problem we have as a country.
“We really do deserve to live in a place where children are free from gun violence in their homes, schools and communities.”