President Donald Trump met Monday with members of Stand with Parkland, a group of families of victims of the 2018 school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, to discuss potential safety measures for the nation's schools, in a gathering that did not include Fred Guttenberg, a parent who was escorted out of the State of the Union address last week.
The Parkland, Florida, group, which focuses on public safety reforms to help prevent shootings, talked with the president about the School Safety Clearinghouse, a project backed by Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., reports The Hill.
The victims' group determined the invitations depending on people who have been working on the clearinghouse, meaning some people, including Guttenberg, one of Trump's most outspoken critics on gun reform, were not invited.
Guttenberg, whose daughter, Jamie, was one of the students killed in the Feb. 14, 2018 mass shooting, and his family are not members of the Stand with Parkland group.
"I am proud of these Parkland families for their efforts on this," Guttenberg said on Twitter. "It appears that this is why they are meeting at the White House today. I wish the WH would have handled the public announcement differently, however, these families are to be commended."
Last week, escorts removed Guttenberg from the Trump's State of the Union address after he yelled at the president after he promised to protect the Second Amendment.
He has since apologized on Twitter for the outburst. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., invited Guttenberg as her guest at the speech.
Immediately after the Parkland shootings, Trump said he would support a possible age requirement on purchasing firearms and stronger background checks, but instead he released proposals to "harden" schools.
He also had said he would support stricter background checks after back-to-back shootings in El Paso, Texas, and in Dayton, Ohio, but the issue faded away during the impeachment proceedings, notes The Hill.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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