Trump’s school plan focuses on arming teachers
but that is opposed by the National Education Association, the largest teachers lobby in the country, and other groups.
“Highly trained expert teachers will be allowed to conceal carry, subject to State Law,” Trump wrote Monday.
The Trump administration wants to help states provide teachers with “rigorous” firearms training, a White House official said Sunday night during a call with reporters describing the administration’s efforts to prevent school shootings. But it was unclear if that meant offering new federal funding.
“The point is that schools should have this tool if they choose to use the tool,” Education Secretary Betsy Devos said on NBC’S “Today” show. “Communities should have the tools, states should have the tool, but nobody should be mandated to do it.”
Devos will lead a Federal Commission on School Safety to study ways to prevent school shootings and make specific recommendations, the White House announced Sunday.
When asked if her commission would also look at raising the age limit on guns, Devos said the group would look at it, but was noncommittal about what may emerge.
In addition to setting up Devos’ commission, the White House is backing a bill designed to improve the federal background check system currently used for gun store purchases, and supports a separate piece of legislation to authorize grants for violence prevention training in schools.
The Department of Justice is pushing through new regulations to ban the sale of “bump stocks” that make rifles fire like automatic weapons, a product used by a gunman to kill 59 people from a window of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas last October.
Trump’s backsliding on guns echoed his seesawing on the immigration debate. Last fall, Trump told lawmakers he’d “take the heat” on an immigration proposal that protected “Dreamers” from deportation. But he refused to support a bipartisan compromise that paired border security spending with a legalization program for people brought to the country illegally as children.
It’s also a sign that Trump, even though he has chastised others for being afraid of the NRA, isn’t willing to push too hard against the politically powerful gun owners lobby.