Angry students, parents demand gun curbs after Florida slaughter

Anger boiled over among parents and students in Parkland, Florida on Saturday over America's unwillingness to toughen gun control laws, after a teenager armed with an assault rifle killed 17 at the local high school.

US President Donald Trump met survivors of the attack on Friday, who had blamed the shooter's mental health.

United States President Donald J. Trump addresses the nation on the shootings at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida where 17 people died, from the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House in Washington, DC on Thursday, February 15, 2018. [Photo: IC]

Authorities said the suspect, Nikolas Cruz, also a former student of the school, has been charged with committing multiple murders. 

The charges can bring the death penalty, but prosecutors have not yet said if they will seek capital punishment.

Days after the killings, a somber series of vigils and funerals were being held in and around Parkland.

Students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where the attack took place, took to streets to blast defenders of the nation's loose gun laws. 

Young student Emma Gonzalez made a powerful public appeal to Trump, addressing a television camera with tears rolling down her face.

She told the crowd politicians should stop taking donations from the National Rifle Association (NRA), a gun rights lobby group.

"If the president wants to come up to me and tell me… it's a terrible tragedy and how it should have never happened and maintain telling us how nothing is going to be done about it. I'm gonna happily ask him how much money he receives from the National Rifle Association," she said.

“Shame on you,” she yelled, and the crowd repeated her.

People attend a vigil for the victims of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Pine Trails Park in Parkland, Florida, the United States, on Feb. 15, 2018. A total of 17 people were killed and 14 others wounded in a mass shooting in a high school in Florida in the United States Wednesday. [Photo: Xinhua]

What has Trump said?

In his latest tweet, the U.S. President said: "Very sad that the FBI missed all of the many signals sent out by the Florida school shooter. This is not acceptable. They are spending too much time trying to prove Russian collusion with the Trump campaign - there is no collusion. Get back to the basics and make us all proud!"

"General McMaster forgot to say that the results of the 2016 election were not impacted or changed by the Russians and that the only Collusion was between Russia and Crooked H, the DNC and the Dems. Remember the Dirty Dossier, Uranium, Speeches, Emails and the Podesta Company!" Trump added.

Screen shot.[Photo: China Plus]

Republicans sidestep gun control issue

In Washington, the political response so far makes clear that the powerful NRA, which spent 30 million US dollars to support Trump's election in 2016, remains formidable.

On Thursday, Trump's nationally televised address made no mention of guns, or of previous mass shootings.

Trump instead treated the Parkland massacre – the 30th mass shooting of 2018, according to the Gun Violence Archive – as a singular event. He focused on offering sympathies to the families of the victims, on the need to tackle the challenges of mental health.

Republican House leader Paul Ryan, whose campaigns have earned NRA support, said Thursday that it was not a time for arguing over gun control, while Republican Florida Senator Marco Rubio said new gun laws alone would not stop shootings.

Easily bought war weapon

As with previous mass shootings, the focus of gun control advocates was on the ready availability of the AR-15, a semi-automatic civilian version of the US military's standard-issue M16.

The NRA calls the AR-15 "America's most popular rifle."

Millions have been sold around the United States – a new one costs as little as 600 US dollars. Stephen Paddock, who opened fire on a Las Vegas country music concert on October 1, 2017, killing 58 and wounding hundreds more, had more than a dozen AR-15s.

Devin Patrick Kelley, who shot and killed 26 in a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas on November 5, used an AR-15.

And it was with an AR-15 that 20-year-old Adam Lanza murdered 26 students and adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut on December 14, 2012, the deadliest school shooting in US history.