Trump insists armed teacher would have taken down school shooter

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump’s proposal to arm school teachers with concealed weapons to forestall incidents of school massacres came under fire on Friday even as it emerged that an armed deputy stood outside and watched as the Florida gunman carried out a carnage that killed 17 in a Parkland High School.
Surveillance video of the school shooting in Florida last week showed that resource officer Scot Peterson, tasked with school security, took up position behind a cement column outside the school after gunman Nikolas Cruz began shooting and did not go in to challenge him for the six minutes during which he carried out the carnage, county authorities in Florida revealed.

Peterson has resigned from his job after being suspended, and some reports said he maintained he had done his best by radioing in the gunman’s position and calling for help.

''I'm devastated. Sick to my stomach. There are no words,'' the local country sheriff Scott Israel said after viewing the surveillance footage ''These families lost their children. We lost coaches. I've been to the funerals, I've been to the vigils… there are no words.''

Asked what Peterson could have done, the Sheriff said he could have gone in and ''Addressed the killer. Killed the killer.''

The disclosure added to the growing chorus of criticism of Trump’s approach of ''hardening the school'' rather than pursue gun control measures opposed by the National Rifle Association that some liberals critics want to be designated as a domestic terrorist organisation. The NRA backed Trump during the Presidential election and spent more than $50 million to help elect pro-gun candidates

Trump himself pitched into the debate on the Florida situation while refusing to back down on his arming teachers proposal, saying the deputy who failed to challenge the shooter was either a ''coward'' or ''didn’t react properly under pressure.'' He insisted that an armed teacher would have taken on the gunman in the hallway and ''shot the hell out of him...before he knew what happened.''

Such heroic response was not what many school teachers expressed while voicing opposition to the Trump proposal. They contended that it is not their remit to bear weapons to schools, much less use it in dangerous situations or get into a shooting match with scores of students around. The Peterson reaction or non-reaction, they said, showed that even experienced law enforcement personnel, forget teachers, often failed to act decisively when faced with challenging situations.

Reports of the deputy’s alleged dereliction came even as President Trump’s proposal that up to 40 per cent of school teachers and instructors could be armed to counter the epidemic of school shooting was widely condemned and ridiculed, with critics questioning the practical, social, and economic aspects of it.

The US public school system has more than three million teachers and arming even 20 per cent would create a ''teacher militia'' of 600,000 armed instructors. Providing them with training and bonuses as Trump has proposed will create a financial burden on a system that is barely able to pay their current modest salaries of less than $40,000

But Trump carried his message to a Conservative political action conference (CPAC) in Washington DC on Friday morning after he backed the NRA contention that gun-free zone in school was what invited school shootings, echoing NRA chief Wayne LaPierre's contention that schools were "targets" because they were gun-free zones.

"It is time to make our schools a much harder target for attackers. We don't want them in our schools. We don't want them. When we declare our schools to be gun-free zones, it just puts our students in far more danger. Far more danger," Trump said, after bizarrely describing gun free zones as being as attractive to killers as ''going for ice cream'' at a White House meeting on Thursday.

Trump also took aim at a range of social ills and other factors that he said are aggravating the school security situation without challenging the NRA, which has hunkered down to protect its idea of the 1791 right to bear arms on American citizens.

''We have to look at the internet because a lot of bad things are happening to young kids and young minds,'' the president said. ''We have to do something about maybe what they’re seeing and how they're seeing it. And also video games. I’m hearing more and more people say the level of violence on video games is really shaping young people’s thoughts.''

''You see these movies, they’re so violent. And yet a kid is able to see the movie if sex isn’t involved, but killing is involved. And maybe they have to put a rating system for that,'' Trump added. The Motion Picture Association of America already has ratings for sex and violence.