Former President in a speech at the National Rifle Association (NRA) convention three days after the Texas school shooting said ‘evil’ is the reason to ‘arm law-abiding citizens’.
‘The existence of evil in our world is not a reason to disarm law-abiding citizens,’ Trump said at the NRA’s annual meeting on Friday evening. ‘The existence of evil is one of the very best reasons to arm law-abiding citizens.’
Several Republican politicians including , in light of gunman Salvador Ramos, 18, shooting and killing 19 children and two adults at Robb Elementary School. The 45th president delivered his remarks as planned.
‘Unlike some, I didn’t disappoint you by not showing up,’ Trump said at the start of his address, drawing some claps.
Trump called Tuesday’s mass shooting by an ‘out-of-control lunatic’ a ‘heinous’ act and a ‘savage and barbaric atrocity that shocked the conscience of every single American’.
‘Each precious young soul that was taken is an incomprehensible loss – literally not comprehensible – stolen from us by a malice that no words can describe,’ he said.
Trump called for ‘hardening’ schools across the US with single-point entries. Only people who are ‘checked, scanned, screened and fully approved’ should be allowed into classrooms, he said, and each campus should have a police officer or armed resource officer on duty at all times.
‘Our schools should not be the softest target,’ he said. ‘Our schools should be the single hardest target in our country.’
Trump continued that the US must change its approach to mental health issues because ‘there is no substitute for a strong mom and a great dad’.
‘If the United States has $40billion dollars to send to Ukraine, we should be able to do whatever it takes to keep our children safe at home,’ Trump said.
‘We spent trillions in Iraq, trillions in Afghanistan and got nothing for it. Before we nation-build the rest of the world, we should be building safe schools for our own children in our own nation, right?’
Trump and other political figures including Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz spoke on the first day of the three-day convention as about 500 protesters holding signs and crosses for the Uvalde elementary school victims gathered outside the George R Brown Convention Center.
‘NRA go away,’ and ‘Shame, it could be your kids today,’ they shouted.
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