Students and teachers returned to a Florida school for the first time since 17 people were killed there, consoling each other even as they called for swift action to address gun violence.<\/p>\n
“Imagine (being) in a plane crash and then having to get on the same plane every day and fly somewhere else — it’s never going to be the same,” David Hogg, a survivor of the February 14 shooting at a Parkland, Florida high school, told ABC television’s “This Week.”<\/p>\n
The school held a voluntary “orientation” Sunday, with teachers and staff due back starting Monday and classes resuming on Wednesday — a prospect described as “daunting” and “scary,” but which is also a step for survivors to move forward after the attack.<\/p>\n
One teacher who had already been back told NPR radio that the shock of returning to a classroom left exactly as it had been during the attack — notebooks still on desks, the calendar still set to February 14 — made her so physically ill she had to leave.<\/p>\n
But Cameron Kasky, a student who survived the attack, tweeted a picture of people on campus, saying: “It is GOOD TO BE HOME.”<\/p>\n
“I have all my friends here with me and it just makes me feel like I’m not alone in this situation,” student Michelle Dittmeier, who attended the orientation, told ABC.<\/p>\n
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School also received support from alumni, with previous graduating classes making banners to decorate the school, the WSVN news reported.<\/p>\n
Amid ardent demands by students like Hogg for action, President Donald Trump has said he is open to raising the minimum age for gun purchases and to banning so-called bump stocks, which can effectively convert semi-automatic weapons into automatic firearms.<\/p>\n
Speaking at the Governors Ball ahead of meetings with the top officials from all 50 states on Monday, Trump said that school safety is a top priority: “I think we’ll make that first on our list.”<\/p>\n
A new CNN poll, conducted a week after the Florida shooting, shows surging public support for stricter gun laws — surpassing levels seen even after other horrific shootings of recent years — and for a ban on powerful semi-automatic weapons like the AR-15 used in Parkland.<\/p>\n
Overall, 70 percent of those surveyed said they supported stricter gun laws, up from 52 percent in October, and 57 percent favored a ban on semi-automatic arms, an increase from 49 per cent.<\/p>\n
Florida Governor Rick Scott has laid out a plan to station a police officer at every public school in the state, raise the legal age for gun purchases from 18 to 21 and pass a “red flag” law for authorities to more easily remove guns from the mentally ill or people with violent histories.<\/p>\n
The age change and “red flag” law are staunchly opposed by the influential National Rifle Association, of which Scott is a member.<\/p>\n
Scott, who holds the NRA’s highest rating of A+, noted on “Fox News Sunday” that “there will be some that disagree. But… I want my state to be safe.”<\/p>\n
Trump had Scott stand up to applause on Sunday, telling him: “You’re doing a great job.”<\/p>\n
Florida was also the scene of a June 2016 shooting at an Orlando nightclub that left 49 people dead.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Students and teachers returned to a Florida school for the first time since 17 people were killed there, consoling each other even as they called for swift action to address gun violence. “Imagine (being) in a plane crash and then having to get on the same plane every day and fly somewhere else — it’s never going to be the same,” David Hogg, a survivor of the February 14 shooting at a Parkland, Florida high school, told ABC television’s “This Week.” The school held a voluntary “orientation” Sunday, with teachers…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7506"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7506"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7507,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7506\/revisions\/7507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}