Trump defends arming teachers to stop a ‘sicko shooter’

President Donald Trump on Thursday defended his proposal to arm teachers, saying he wants “adept” educators with concealed guns to fire back at a “sicko shooter.”

Trump also claimed in his Thursday tweetstorm that if a shooter knows that a school has “a large number of very weapons talented teachers (and others) who will be instantly shooting, the sicko will NEVER attack that school. Cowards won’t go there…problem solved. Must be offensive, defense alone won’t work!”

Trump’s comments, in a morning tweet storm, come a day after he heard emotional pleas and personal stories of loss from the parents and friends of young people who had died in school shootings at a White House event on Wednesday.

At that meeting, Trump spoke about potential solutions to address school shootings, such as advocating arming school officials and teachers with guns and ending gun-free zones, which he said are a sign to shooters that says, “Let’s go in and let’s attack because bullets aren’t coming back at us.”

The Thursday morning tweets were an attempt by the to clarify his remarks at the listening session.

“If a potential ‘sicko shooter’ knows that a school has a large number of very weapons talented teachers (and others) who will be instantly shooting, the sicko will NEVER attack that school. Cowards won’t go there…problem solved. Must be offensive, defense alone won’t work!” Trump tweeted.

Sam Zeif an 18-year-old survivor of the shooting at Marjory Stonemason Douglas High School in Parkland, called the idea “absurd” on MSNBC late Wednesday after the president’s listening session.

“That is absurd to feel the need to arm those innocent people with the choice of not knowing if they’re going to have to kill a kid that day, granted it would protection, but, I mean, come on — a shootout in our class? This is not the Wild West,” he said.

The president said at the White House event that concealed carry “only works” with people who are “very adept at using firearms” but said that if one of the “brave” coaches in Parkland who tried to stop the shooter had had a gun, he could have shot the shooter instead of running at him.

Some parents present seemed to open to the idea on Wednesday at the White House. But Mark Barden, who lost his 7-year-old son Daniel in the Sandy Hook massacre, vehemently pushed back.

“School teachers have more than enough responsibilities right now than to have the awesome responsibility of lethal force to take a life,” said Barden, who is married to a teacher.

Shooters are “not going to care if someone’s there with a gun,” he said. “That’s their plan anyway.”

The president on Thursday, in a tweet, also continued to push his plan for comprehensive background checks, mental health and raising the age to buy firearms to 21 and banning bump stocks.