A new report revealed that as the shooting in South Florida’s Stoneman Douglas High School took place, an armed officer did not take action and waited outside the school as shots were fired.
The Sheriff Deputy Scot Peterson was at the school during the shooting and his refusal to act forced the police department to suspend the Broward County Sheriff. Peterson has since resigned from his position.
Prior to his planned speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference, President Trump slammed the former Deputy. “When it came time to get in there and do something he didn’t have the courage or something happened but he certainly did a poor job.”
This adds an interesting element to another argument that President Trump made in a meeting with students of Stoneman Douglas when he proposed the idea of arming 20 percent of “adept” teachers with guns to protect students. With no immediate plans in place, Trump’s idea suggests to offer bonuses to teachers who are trained with the use of firearms, an argument that has more push back than support. Trump has not backed down from this argument saying on three different occasions since the shooting that he is for arming teachers.
Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has also been in favor of arming teachers in the pass. Almost famously, DeVos during her confirmation hearing said that some schools were in need of firearms to protect against grizzly bear attacks.
Since the shooting took place, we’ve seen the students of Stoneman Douglas High School stand up in their fight for gun control legislation. Students have protested with Lie-in demonstrations, walk outs of their schools and for many students from the affected high school — they took a bus to the state capital to speak with lawmakers about the issue.
As students begin their fight at the federal level, politicians in the State of Florida voted down the idea of bringing any gun reform legislation to the table, a huge blow to seeing any gun law reform in the state.
CNN hosted a town hall as well where students and parents of victims to gun violence were given the opportunity to grill NRA Spokeswoman Dana Loesch and Florida Senator Marco Rubio. When asked by a student if he would reject money from the National Rifle Association, he refused to say that he would not.
In a shift from his previous position, the 2016 Presidential candidate did say that he would vote in favor of legislation to raise the gun ownership age from 18 to 21 and would vote for reform to the purchase of high capacity magazine clips.
