Immediate past US President, Donald Trump, has said the US should prioritise funding for school security over aid to Ukraine, days after a Texas school shooting which killed pupils.
Mr. Trump, speaking at a pro-gun conference, said the US can send billions to Ukraine, but“we should be able to do whatever it takes to keep our children safe at home.” The conference of the National Rifle Association (NRA), is the largest US gun group, and takes place in Houston, US.
Mr. Trump’s comment came after a mass shooting by a teenager in Uvalde (a city and the county seat of Uvalde County, Texas, United States).
In his speech, he pointed out that “We spent trillions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and got nothing for it”, drawing loud applause, adding that “Before we nation-build the rest of the world, we should be building safe schools for our own children in our own nation”.
A Recent Spending by the US
Earlier this month (May 2022), the US Congress overwhelmingly voted to send close to $40bn (£31bn) in military aid to Ukraine. In total, US lawmakers have sent about $54bn to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion on Ukraine on Thursday, February 24, 2022.
In Mr. Trump’s speech, he also rejected calls for tightened gun controls, saying decent Americans should not be allowed firearms to defend themselves against “evil”. Instead, he proposed a “top-to-bottom overhaul” of school safety, with fortified single points of entry including metal detectors and at least, one armed police officer in every campus. To point fingers, he accused Democrats of stonewalling such security measures.
The former Republican President began his speech by reading out the names of the Uvalde shooting victims, with each marked by a bell toll.
A Time to Draw Back
The annual conference of the NRA, which boasts five million members, is taking place 280 miles (450 km) from Uvalde, the venue of the worst school shooting in the US in a decade.
Ahead of the conference, several Conservative speakers and musical performers announced they were backing out, including Texas Governor, Greg Abbott, Senator John Cornyn and the manufacturer of the rifle used in the Uvalde attack. Mr. Trump also called in his speech for the US to “drastically change our approach to mental health”. He made a similar call during his Presidency, even while critics at the time accused him of trying to defund medical programmes that included mental healthcare.
Before Mr. Trump spoke, Texas Senator, Ted Cruz, blamed mass shootings mainly on absent fathers, declining church attendance, social media and video games. Outside the venue, hundreds of protesters gathered to oppose the NRA. They held signs saying “NRA kill kids”, “protect children not guns” and held crosses and photos of killed victims.
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