A Letter From President Donald J. Trump

The White House

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Walker,

I'm writing to offer my condolences on the death of your daughter, who was one of thirty children between the ages of six and nine killed this week in the mass shooting at Happy River Elementary School.

For more than two hundred years, it has been the sad duty of Presidents to console parents whose children have died in the service of our great country. George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, and others have sought to ease the grief that mothers and fathers feel upon the loss of a loved one. The saving grace is in knowing that these young Americans - who died at Gettysburg, Normandy, and on other sacred battlefields - died to protect our freedoms and the values that make America great.

Your daughter was a soldier in a long line of patriotic Americans who died to protect our Second Amendment rights. Their lives were taken by God on battlefields in Orlando, Aurora, Charleston, and Tuscon; at schools like Columbine High School, Sandy Hook Elementary School, the University of Texas, Virginia Tech, and - yes - at Happy River.

As you know, the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States protects the right of everyone in this country to buy an assault weapon. But rest assured; anytime someone from a terrorist organization or hate group commits mass murder, my Administration will take their guns away from them as soon as possible after the crime has been committed.

My thoughts and Melania's best wishes are with you in this difficult time. Although your daughter was only seven years old, she died nobly in the service of America.

May God bless you, your dead daughter, and the United States of America.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Trump
President of the United States

Thomas Hauser can be reached by email at thauser@rcn.com. His most recent book - Muhammad Ali: A Tribute to The Greatest - was published by Pegasus Books.