Angry students, parents demand gun curbs after Florida slaughter

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Anger boiled over among parents and students in Parkland, Florida, on Saturday over the US' 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, blaming the incident on the shooter's mental health.

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.

'Get back to the basics'

Trump tweeted on Friday blaming the FBI for being preoccupied with the Russian investigation and missing the signal of the possible attack by the disturbed teenager.

"Very sad that the FBI missed all of the many signals sent out by the Florida school shooter. This is not acceptable," he wrote on Twitter.

Screenshot of President Donald Trump's tweet

"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!"

Read more: Trump links FBI school shooting blunder to Russia probe

It was the 18th school shooting of the year and sparked renewed calls for gun control.

US President Donald Trump speaks with doctor Igor Nichiporenko and First Lady Melania Trump while visiting first responders at Broward Health North hospital Pompano Beach, Feb. 16, 2018. /VCG Photo

Trump on Friday visited survivors and first responders in the attack, which took place not far from his Mar-a-Lago estate where he was spending the holiday weekend.

Trump is staunchly opposed to additional restrictions on guns or gun ownership, but Vice President Mike Pence said at an event in Dallas the president would make school safety "a top priority" when he meets with governors of US states in the coming days.

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.

People join together after a school shooting that killed 17 to protest against guns on the steps of the Broward County Federal courthouse, Feb. 17, 2018. /VCG Photo

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."

A gun enthusiast attends the South Florida Gun Show at Dade County Youth Fairgrounds in Miami, Florida, Feb. 17, 2018. /VCG Photo

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 Oct. 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 Nov. 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 Dec. 14, 2012, the deadliest school shooting in US history.

Source(s): AFP ,Reuters