Ex-senator: Learn CPR
Former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania said Sunday that students who have rallied for gun control should instead learn CPR or find their own way to prevent a school shooting.
“How about kids instead of looking to someone else to solve their problem, do something about maybe taking CPR classes or trying to deal with situations that when there is a violent shooter that you can actually respond to that,” the Republican said on CNN’S “State of the Union.”
The 2012 and 2016 presidential candidate said students could work to stop bullying in their communities or respond themselves to a shooter instead of asking lawmakers to approve legislation to protect them.
Santorum said that if the rallies are about more than politics, then the country needs to have a broader discussion that doesn’t revolve around “phony gun laws” that don’t work.
“They took action to ask someone to pass a law,” he said of the demonstrators. “They didn’t take action to say, ‘How do I, as an individual, deal with this problem?’” corporate events planner from Long Beach, California, said the students have done a lot to inspire their older peers.
“Maybe that’s what it’s going to take — children leading us,” Daley said. She comes from a family of educators and marched Saturday in her hometown with three generations of her family, including her 87-year-old father, an Air Force veteran.
Some students from “the silent minority” still said they felt excluded.
Kyle Kashuv, another student at the Florida school, also appeared on “Face the Nation” to voice his support for the 2nd Amendment and for enforcement of existing gun laws. He expressed his disappointment that he was not invited to speak at Saturday’s march and placed blame for the deadly shooting at his school on local law enforcement and the FBI.
“This kid was flagged,” Kashuv said of accused shooter Nikolas Cruz and reports to law enforcement before the shooting that he posed a threat.
Sen. Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat who has previously voted against stricter laws on high-capacity magazines and semi-automatic weapons, said the student rallies will likely make a difference as Congress takes on the issue again.
Some of the Florida students said they realize that compromise will be necessary. But, even as he rested back in Florida on Sunday, Goodman said the marches are only the beginning.
He and his peers will be regrouping this week on their spring break, he said.
“I considered myself more politically aware than politically active. I was very intrigued with the (last) election,” he said.
But something has changed in him.
“Now this is something that I must do,” he said.