NY Daily News rips Trump plan to arm teachers: ‘We are here to teach life, not take one’

The New York Daily News, President Trump’s hometown newspaper, on Friday continued its assault on the president’s stance on gun violence in schools.

The front page of the newspaper featured an illustration of a pistol jammed into a teacher’s pencil holder with the accompanying headline “We are here to teach a life, not take one.”

.@NYDailyNews continues its series of tough front pages on guns. Here’s Friday’s. pic.twitter.com/aMUepH3WBi

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) February 23, 2018

The cover takes on the president’s suggestion during a listening session with school shooting survivors Wednesday for schools to arm and train teachers to stop an active shooter following last week’s shooting at a Parkland, Fla., high school that killed left 17 dead.

“If you had a teacher who was adept at firearms, that could very well end the attack very quickly,” Trump said. “We’re going to be looking at that very strongly. And I think a lot of people are going to be opposed to it. I think a lot of people are going to like it.”

{mosads}

In a series of tweets Thursday, the president clarified his position, stating that he proposed giving guns to teachers with military or other firearms experience.

“I never said ‘give teachers guns’ like was stated on Fake News @CNN & @NBC. What I said was to look at the possibility of giving ‘concealed guns to gun adept teachers with military or special training experience — only the best,” Trump tweeted.

“20% of teachers, a lot, would now be able to immediately fire back if a savage sicko came to a school with bad intentions. Highly trained teachers would also serve as a deterrent to the cowards that do this. Far more assets at much less cost than guards. A ‘gun free’ school is a magnet for bad people. ATTACKS WOULD END!”

Trump continued, adding that guns used by trained teachers at schools would serve as a deterrent to “sicko shooters.”

“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.

Thursday’s New York Daily News cover comes a day after the paper depicted Trump with tape over his mouth with a logo from the National Rifle Association.

“He spoke about background checks. He spoke about mental illness. He spoke about arming teachers,” Thursday’s cover read. “But he never mentioned a word about the 300 million guns flooding our streets. Wonder why?”