Three days after the massacre at a Texas elementary school, former United States President Donald Trump is calling for stricter security measures in schools at the NRA’s annual gun lobby conference, Reuters news agency reported. He wants every school to have a police officer or armed guard always and everywhere and calls for the abolition of gun-free zones in schools. According to Trump, those zones ensure that victims have no means to defend themselves in the event of an attack by an armed person.
Also read: Even after massacre at Texas school, the US is heading for more weapons
“As the old saying goes, the only way to stop a bad person with a gun is a good person with a gun,” Trump said in front of a half-filled hall in Houston, Texas’ largest city, according to Reuters. “This is not a question of money, but a question of will. If the United States has $40 billion to send to Ukraine, we can do this.”
Republican politicians invariably argue for more armed security after school shootings, but research shows that armed security guards actually make a school less safe.
Right to armament
Trump also insists that citizens have the right to arm themselves in order to defend themselves. “The existence of evil in our world is not a reason to deprive law-abiding citizens of their weapons, rather the existence of evil is one of the very best reasons to arm law-abiding citizens,” he said. Trump also wants to make it easier to lock up “deranged” people. “All these sick minds have the same profile.”
Also read this report: ‘I’ve always prayed that something like this wouldn’t happen in Uvalde’
Current President Joe Biden said in an emotional speech on Tuesday evening that he wanted a ban on assault weapons and other “sensible gun laws.” “As a country, we need to ask ourselves when the hell are we going to stand up to the gun lobby. When the hell are we going to do what we all know should be done?” he said.
But according to his predecessor Trump, stricter gun laws would not have prevented the massacre. “The various rules being pushed by the left to curtail gun ownership would have done nothing to prevent the horror that took place. Absolutely nothing.”
Nineteen children and two teachers were killed in Tuesday’s shooting at an elementary school in the Texas town of Uvalde. The 18-year-old perpetrator was eventually shot dead by a member of the border guard.