Trump: Armed teacher would have ‘shot the hell’ out of gunman

President Trump on Friday defended his proposal to arm school officials who have had firearms training, saying that a teacher would have “shot the hell out of” the gunman who killed 17 people at a Florida high school last week.

Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference, the premier annual gathering of grass-roots conservatives, Trump vented anger at Broward County Deputy Scot Peterson, the armed officer who resigned after reports that he waited outside the school as the shooting took place.

“He didn’t turn out to be too good, I will tell you that,” Trump said. “He turned out to not be good.”

{mosads}Earlier in the day, Trump said that Peterson was either a “coward” or that he froze under pressure. The president has also criticized law enforcement officials for not following up on tips that the alleged gunman, Nikolas Cruz, may have been a threat.

Trump has proposed arming some school officials, a highly controversial proposal that has angered gun control activists, who say that more guns on school grounds is not the solution to preventing further shootings.

At CPAC, Trump went on an extended defense of the proposal, arguing that school officials “want to protect these kids.”

“The teachers and the coaches and other people in the building, the dean, the assistant principal, the principal, they love their people, they want to protect these kids,” Trump said.

“A teacher would have shot the hell out of him,” he added.

The president argued that airports, banks and government building are protected by armed guards and said that gun-free zones attract deranged shooters, who know they can rampage without return fire until the police show up.

“This would be a major deterrent, because these people are inherently cowards,” Trump said. “If they thought like if this guy thought that other people would be shooting bullets back at him, he wouldn’t have gone to that school. He wouldn’t have gone there. It is a gun free zone.”

Trump said he is calling for only 10 or 20 percent of school officials to be armed and said that the firearms should only be given to “very adept gun people.”

“I don’t want to have 100 guards standing with rifles all over the school,” he said. “You do a conceal carry permit.”