White House Indicates it could Collect Funds to Train and Arm Teachers

The president asked about the arming of teachers during Wednesday’s listening session at the White House where students, parents and educators with ties to school shootings gathered to talk about the issue. Trump asked the group their thoughts about arming teachers, noting that “this would be obviously only for people who were very adept at handling a gun.”
This followed repeated assertions from Donald Trump during earlier meetings at the White House, as well as in presidential tweets, that his response to the school massacre in Florida last week is to arm teachers and sports coaches.
It would be a “great deterrent” to killers, he said.
At the White House press briefing on Thursday afternoon, Raj Shah, deputy press secretary, was asked if it was practical to expect teachers to carry concealed handguns to protect their students from shooters.
“When you have a horrific situation, what you think and do not think is practical can change,” Shah said.
But several national teachers unions and education experts have spoken out against President Donald Trump’s suggestions that arming teachers would be a way to lessen the carnage of school shootings.
At a meeting at the White House with state and local officials early Thursday afternoon, Trump talked of paying bonuses to some teachers, providing “highly adept people, people who understand weaponry, guns … [with] a concealed permit”.
The White House was later challenged that 40% of America’s teachers being given a bonus of, for example, $1,000, would mean $1bn being distributed to a million of them.
“Do you really think that’s too much to pay for school safety?” Shah responded. Shah said Trump would soon be talking to members of Congress about legislative and budgetary proposals.
Barack Obama weighed in on Thursday, tweeting : “Young people have helped lead all our great movements. How inspiring to see it again in so many smart, fearless students standing up for their right to be safe.”
> Shiuly Akter