Trump meets shooting survivors, suggests arming teachers

“Let’s never let this happen again. Please,” he told the president, later adding: “I don’t understand why I can still go in a store and buy a weapon of war.”

Urgent calls for action following the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre, which left 20 children and six teachers dead, had failed to break the national deadlock on gun control.

But students have vowed to make the Parkland tragedy a turning point, with youths inspired on social media by the activism of their peers staging walkouts from high schools in Florida and elsewhere on Wednesday.

– ‘NRA has got to go’ –

Hundreds of students descended on city hall in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and marched in other cities, including Chicago, the Midwestern metropolis racked by gun violence.

In Washington, hundreds more gathered outside the White House chanting slogans against the National Rifle Association (NRA), the powerful gun lobby, and demanding action from Trump.

“Hey hey, ho ho, the NRA has got to go,” they chanted.

Students are planning a march on Washington on March 24, with sister rallies planned across the country.

Trump — who received strong backing from the NRA during his White House run — has shown a new-found willingness to take at least some steps on gun control following the Parkland shooting.

The president threw his support Tuesday behind moves to ban “bump stocks” — an accessory that allows a semi-automatic rifle to be fired nearly as fast as an automatic weapon.

But his suggestion of arming teachers drew scorn from some.

“What I heard today is that we need to arm students and teachers so that we’ll have shootouts in the hallways? I mean, come on. There was pandemonium,” said Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter was killed in the shooting.

“I’m enraged. I want to hear real solutions,” he said.

Robert Runcie, the superintendent of Broward County Schools, agreed.

“We don’t need to put guns in the hands of teachers,” he said. “We need to arm our teachers with more money in their pocket.”

The idea of countering school shootings with additional weapons is already being put in place in Broward County.

Sheriff Scott Israel announced Tuesday that “deputies who are qualified and trained will be carrying rifles on school grounds from this point forward.”