Florida shooting survivor rips Trump’s ‘terrible’ idea to arm to teachers

A survivor of the deadly school shooting in Parkland, Fla., sharply criticized President Trump over his suggestion to arm teachers in the hopes of preventing future massacres.

Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student Alfonso Calderon told CNN’s Don Lemon in an interview that Trump’s idea to arm teachers was “terrible,” and questioned whether the president had ever been in a public school.

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“That’s a terrible idea,” Calderon said. “I don’t know if Donald Trump has ever been to a public high school, but as far as I’m aware, teachers are meant to be educators.”

“They are meant to teach young minds how to work in the real world,” he continued. “They are not meant to know how to carry AR-15s, they are not meant to know how to put on Kevlar vests for the other students or for themselves. This is not what we stand for.”

Trump made the suggestion at a “listening session” Wednesday at the White House with students.

“If you had a teacher who was adept at firearms, that could very well end the attack very quickly,” Trump said. “We’re going to be looking at that very strongly. And I think a lot of people are going to be opposed to it. I think a lot of people are going to like it.”

He also vowed that his administration would take action, and that the issue of gun violence would not be stuck on “talk” as it had under past administrations.

“We’re going to be very strong on background checks,” Trump said Wednesday. “There are many ideas I have; there are many ideas that other people have, and we’re going to pick out the strongest ideas, the most important ideas.”

“It’s not going to be talk like it has been in the past,” he added.

In his interview with Lemon, Calderon also railed against NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch’s conduct during the CNN town hall. He specifically hit her response to a victim’s mother who had asked about Loesch’s interpretation of the Second Amendment. 

“I feel like she is, she isn’t living in reality,” Calderon said. “How dare she. The mother the Scott Biegel, one of my teachers at the school, was talking about when the amendment was ratified. And [Loesch] went off on a tangent about how there were more than muskets etc. at the time. This is so irrelevant.”

“We don’t care about that at all. What we care about is seeing change, and now. And I know that’s what Scott’s mother wants to see as well. [Loesch] tiptoed around questions and dodged the yeses and nos. That is indicative to me as to what I think the NRA is going to do for this movement and for the people of Parkland who honestly, I think, are fed up.”