The White House “listening session” on guns Wednesday was full of raw emotion, some competing ideas for solutions, and of course, bluster from Donald Trump.
“It's not going to be talk like it has been in the past,” Trump promised, saying that he would be “very strong on background checks” and “mental health” issues (too bad he already signed a law revoking Obama-era gun restrictions for people with mental illnesses). Trump also promoted the NRA-backed idea of putting more guns in schools to keep kids safer.
”It's called concealed carry, where a teacher would have a concealed gun on them,” Trump said. The fact that he was carrying a cheat sheet of notes at the event reminding himself to say “I hear you” didn’t exactly inspire confidence.
But some goodness did emerge from the White House gathering in the sense that at least it amplified the voices of Marjory Stoneman Douglas survivors and parents of the victims.
Shooting survivor Justin Gruber, 19, who was born the same year as the Columbine massacre, told the room: "I was born into a world where I never got to experience safety and peace."
Andrew Pollack, a grieving father who lost his daughter in the shooting, became visibly angry as he spoke flanked by his three sons.
We're here because my daughter has no voice. She was murdered last week and she was taken from us. Shot nine times on the third floor. We as a country failed our children. [...] Should have been one school shooting and we should have fixed it. And I'm pissed because my daughter I'm not going to see again. She's not here. She's not here. [...] Never ever will I see my kid. I want it to sink in—it's eternity. My beautiful daughter, I'm never going to see again.
And Sam Zeif, 18, another shooting survivor, choked back tears as he talked about texting his family members that he might never see them again. “And then it occurred to me that my 14-year-old brother was directly above me—in that classroom where Scott Beigel was murdered,” Zeif said of the teacher who saved his brother’s life. “He was the last kid to get back into that class.”
Zeif continued, “To feel like this, ever—I can’t feel comfortable in my country knowing that people have, will have, are ever going to feel like this. I want to feel at school. [...] I don’t know how I’m ever going to set foot on that place again.” (Please check out the Zeif videos below—it’s required viewing.)
When Trump asked attendees to offer solutions, the first couple recommendations came from Stoneman Douglas parents who suggested training/arming teachers or adding more deputies.
But two parents who lost kids at the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy, Nicole Hockley and Mark Barden offered up information from a nonprofit organization they helped form, Sandy Hook Promise, after national legislative efforts stalled.
“Nobody wants to see a shoot out in school,” Barden said of arming teachers, “And a deranged sociopath on his way to commit an act of murder in a school—knowing the outcome is going to be suicide—is not gonna care if there is somebody there with a gun. That's their plan anyway."
Then Barden described the tools they use at Sandy Hook Promise to prevent future school tragedies:
Sandy Hook Promise has built something that works. We train students and we train teachers and we train educators with the tools of how to recognize these people. And with the tools of how to intervene and with the tools to get them to the help they need before they pick up a gun or any other weapon and commit a horrible tragedy. It works. We don't charge for it. We're not asking for money. We've already stopped school shootings. We’ve already prevented suicides. We've already captured other social issues like bullying and cutting. We know that it works. We have a solution right here. We’re asking for you to please help. We need to do this nationally, now.
Here’s several clips of Sam Zeif, who marveled that, at 18, he can go into a gun store and buy “a weapon of war.” (And if you want a full clip of Zeif, CNN has one here.)