By Arathy Somasekhar and Kanishka Singh
HOUSTON/WASHINGTON -Former President Donald Trump on Friday argued the United States should make it easier to confine “deranged” people and eliminate gun-free school zones after a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers this week at a Texas school.
“Clearly, we need to make it far easier to confine the violent and mentally deranged into mental institutions,” Trump said in a speech at a convention in Houston of the National Rifle Association, a gun rights advocacy group.
Tuesday’s fatal shooting of 19 pupils and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas, by an 18-year-old gunman equipped with an AR-15 style semiautomatic rifle again focused attention on the NRA, a major donor to Congress members, mostly Republicans.
On suggestions to improve the security of schools, Trump said every school should have a single point of entry, strong fencing and metal detectors, adding there should also be a police official or an armed guard at all times in every school.
“This is not a matter of money. This is a matter of will. If the United States has $40 billion to send to Ukraine, we can do this,” he said, referring to Washington’s financial and military support for Ukraine after Russia’s invasion in February.
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The former U.S. president also called for eliminating gun-free school zones, adding that such zones leave victims with no means to defend themselves in case of an attack by an armed person.
“As the age-old saying goes, the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” Trump added.
“The existence of evil is one of the very best reasons to arm law-abiding citizens.”
Video images of the main auditorium in Houston, which holds about 3,600 people, showed it to be about half-full as Trump took the stage on Friday afternoon.
(Reporting by Reporting by Arathy Somasekhar in Houston; additional reporting by Steve Holland in Washington; writing by Kanishka Singh; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Cynthia Osterman)
