Emma Gonzalez has survived the rampage at Parkland High School. 17 people were killed. Now, the student has confronted US President Donald Trump with serious allegations.
Following the rampage at a school in Florida, a young survivor in a furious speech has condemned the handling of US President Donald Trump by force of arms.
“Be ashamed,” cried Emma Gonzalez at an anti-gun demonstration in Fort Lauderdale. The student criticized Trump’s proximity to the US arms lobby NRA and demanded stricter laws. The president made his first statement after the bloodbath on US weapons law and made allegations against the Democrats.
Gonzalez condemns acceptance of NRA donations
Gonzalez is a student at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where a former classmate had killed 17 people with a rapid-fire rifle on Wednesday. She criticized Trump for accepting money from the National Rifle Association (NRA) in the 2016 presidential campaign. “To all politicians who have received donations from the NRA: Shame on you,” she shouted in front of the several dozen demonstrators. “Be ashamed, ashamed,” the crowd chanted.
“If the president tells me this was a terrible tragedy (…) and that you can not do anything, I ask him how much money he got from the National Rifle Association ,” Gonzalez added. “I know it: $ 30 million.” The student demanded stricter gun laws. It is about “life or death” and not about politics, said the 18-year-old to “AFP”.
Speech of the student spread rapidly in social networks
In her speech she rejected the criticism of the President that neighbors and classmates would not have warned the authorities against the future shooter Nikolas Cruz. “We did that, over and over,” said Gonzalez. The angry speech of the student with the almost shaved head spread rapidly in the social networks. Her name became one of the main buzzwords in the Twitter short message service.
The US President rejects stricter gun laws. After the massacre in Parkland Trump announced a better protection of schools, but he did not comment on the widespread use of firearms and gun legislation. Trump, who had visited survivors of the massacre on Friday, met with local politicians and the director of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Saturday.
Trump accuses democrats of failing
Via Twitter, he accused the Democrats of failing to legislate at the beginning of his predecessor Barack Obama’s term. They would not have used their majority in Congress back then. “They did not want it and now they just talk,” Trump wrote. After majoritarians had changed, Obama’s initiatives for a stricter gun law had failed several times over Republican opposition.
Meanwhile, the US authorities came under heavy criticism because they could have apparently prevented the bloodbath: The US Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI admitted on Friday that a warning to the later offender was not followed up. In early January, a caller had warned the FBI that the 19-year-old apparently planning a massacre. He also briefed the FBI on Cruz’s weapons possession, as well as its intentions to kill and disturbing social network posts. The local police also knew about the young man’s potential for aggression: his mother had called the police several times for his violent outbursts.