Chris Cuomo Presses Nancy Pelosi on School Safety: The Building You Work in is Secure
CNN’s Town Hall with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi had an extended segment on the issue of gun violence in schools, featuring a question from a survivor of the Santa Fe, Texas high school shooting last week that left ten people dead.
Alexis Wilson, a senior at Santa Fe High School, asked Pelosi, “where does the government stand on arming and training our teachers, much in the way we use air marshals on airplanes?”
Pelosi offered her sympathy to Wilson for the tragedy, before replying that Democrats “do not think that is the solution” to gun violence at schools. The California Democrat went on to voice her support for “common sense background check legislation.”
“Following a tragedy like this all we want to do is pray for the families, but I do not support arming teachers and the rest,” Pelosi said, adding that she supports training those who carry guns in schools.
CNN’s Chris Cuomo followed up by noting “there’s a little bit of an either-or problem with how we’re trying to approach solutions,” with some lawmakers reflexively opposing plans to harden schools.
“The building we’re in now, the building you work in, the point of entry there is secure,” Cuomo said. “You don’t walk in with a trench coat with a shotgun underneath your jacket, and get in. It doesn’t happen, you know this.”
“Why can’t that be part of the equation?” Cuomo pressed. “Talk about universal background checks, fine. Talk about mental health, how to identify them, money for treatment. But why either-or? Why not make the schools safer?”
Pelosi pointed out that the omnibus spending bill passed in March allocated more than $1 billion to improving school safety.
“The children should not have to be worried about going to school as a place that violence can occur,” she continued. “You have to get to systemically stop people from having guns who shouldn’t have guns in the first place.”
Watch above, via CNN.
[image via screengrab]
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