Two words that seem to define the same emotional feeling are sad and pathetic. It was sad to watch and listen to Sam Zeif describe how his life has been torn apart after losing his brother-like friend and pathetic how President Trump went with his prepared remarks — never once mentioning the solution Sam put forth in his agony. Those words are not the same and while Trump deserves credit for bringing that group of people together at the White House and allowing them to speak in front of cameras, what he does from here on is how he will be remembered.
More than any other moment, the President’s words claiming he is going to fix this will determine his fate amongst the next generation of voters. They have given him an opportunity to abandon his allegiance to the NRA after it gave him the most money ($30 million) for his presidential campaign in the primary (they usually wait until you are a candidate to back up the truck). Based on his actions thus far as president, it is doubtful they will be voting for him in 2020, if he is still a candidate.
The White House budget bill introduced by Trump contains millions of dollars worth of cuts to programs designed to keep schools safe and combat mental illness. In addition, in February, 2017 President Trump also signed H.S. Res. 40, which made it easier for people with severe mental illness to buy guns legally. The rule applied to those people that the Social Security Administration (SSA) had determined to have a mental disorder that prevents them from managing their affairs. The names of those people, approximately 75,000 each year whom the SSA makes such a determination of, were previously required to be reported to the national background check system.
The requirement was based on President Obama’s presidential memorandum issued after the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School and the SSA’s final rule, which was signed in December, 2016. All of this was a followup to the NCIS Improvement Amendment Act of 2007, signed into law in January, 2008, by then President George W. Bush. What Trump signed into law undid what President Obama had done to prevent these documented as mentally ill people from being able to purchase a gun.
At today’s White House meeting, President Trump claimed he was going to focus on the mentally ill to keep them from harming themselves and others, as well as looking into raising the age for buying guns. He also stated he wanted to improve background checks, but didn’t say how. If his past actions are any gauge as to how he will act in the future, some of the students might want to reconsider their comments that he’s doing “a great job.”
There is little hope of banning the assault weapons used for these school killings (the AR-15s) with the current Congress and it is extremely doubtful that President Trump would ever sign such a bill. The torch has been passed on to these students to make the changes that are needed to happen. They have already adopted the slogan #NeverAgain and promise, if legislators don’t pass the ban, they will vote them out. These students will have much to say until they get their way and their posters are expressing their revulsion for the status quo - bought and paid for politicians who have blood on their hands for the laws they don’t write.
As a teacher myself, I am repulsed by another idea Trump put forth, echoing Newt Gingrich’s call for arming teachers so they can take down an intruder armed with an assault weapon. The ridiculousness of this argument was initially expressed years back by the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre, who claimed the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun was with a good guy with a gun. That hasn’t happened, despite all the guns that have been sold to supposedly ‘good guys’ since then.
Teachers are not paid to murder hostiles. When a student wrote in his essay about what he would accomplish if he could live forever, that he wanted to “blow up cities”, I confronted him about it. He claimed it was a joke. I reported it to his guidance counselor and he was investigated. I hope he doesn’t get to buy a gun. That is part of our job — to recognize signs of malicious intent or a troubled spirit. We need to connect the dots and get these signs right the first time. This is not a video game where you get to play again.