Trump ‘listening session’ to give survivors a voice
Hopes to thwart shootings
President Trump is meeting today with students, parents and teachers affected by the mass shootings in Parkland, Fla.; Newtown, Conn.; and Columbine, Colo.; on ways to keep schools safe, while U.S. Sen. Edward J. Markey called for federal research into the killings.
Trump will hold a “listening session” that may address mental health, gun laws and other security measures schools face as the administration begins to tackle school safety, what the president is now describing as a “top priority.”
Connor Dietrich, 17, a junior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, where a gunman killed 17 people last week, said Trump needs to be focused on gun regulations, including expanded background checks, and more help for the mentally ill.
“None of us are OK,” Dietrich said. “This was a tragic event we were all forced to live through. But we are here turning our grief into fuel to make change happen and we need the president as focused on change as we are.”
Trump yesterday directed the Justice Department to move to ban devices like the rapid-fire bump stocks used in last year’s Las Vegas massacre. It was a small sign of movement on the gun violence issue that has long tied Washington in knots.
“We must do more to protect our children,” Trump said, adding that his administration was working hard to respond to the shooting in Parkland that left 17 dead.
Markey meanwhile called on the federal government to reverse a policy he said has effectively banned gun violence research at the Centers for Disease and Prevention since 1996, leading to a dearth of scientific research into the causes of firearm injuries and more than 33,000 deaths annually. In 1996, Congress barred CDC funds from “advocating or promoting” gun control.
“When disease and illness brings this kind of widespread death, doctors, scientists and public health researchers study the causes so they can find solutions and the federal government invests in those efforts,” Markey said. “But right now zero dollars is spent at the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention on research on gun violence.”
“It’s time to treat gun violence like the public health emergency it is,” Markey said. “No one should be afraid of nonpartisan scientific research, not Democrats, not Republicans, not the National Rifle Association.”
Michelle Williams, dean of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said limited privately funded research has shown the availability of guns in homes leads to more homicide and more suicide.