US President Donald Trump on Friday said the Second Amendment of the Constitution, which protects citizens’ right to bear arms, will never be under siege while he is President, and went on to praise members of the National Rifle Association (NRA) as true patriots.
“Your Second Amendment rights are under siege, but they will never, ever be under siege as long as I’m your President,” Efe quoted Trump as saying in a speech at the annual NRA convention in Dallas, Texas.
“I want to thank you, the true American patriots of the NRA, who defend our rights, our liberty, and our great American flag,” he said.
Speaking about the latest mass shooting at a school in Parkland, Florida, last February, in which 17 people were killed, Trump insisted that the solution to such violence is to allow “highly trained teachers to carry concealed weapons” in the classroom.
“By the way, these teachers, they love their students…They love their students. And they are not going to let anybody hurt their students. But you have to give them a chance,” he said to the applause of the thousands attending the main event of the US gun lobby convention.
He also said that making schools a “gun-free zone” is an invitation to mentally disturbed people to “come in and take us”.
The Parkland shooting sparked a wave of massive protests around the country led by students demanding stricter gun control.
Though at first Trump seemed open to restricting access to certain weapons, he finally limited himself to signing a measure to strengthen security in the nation’s schools, a step supported by the NRA itself.