The school attended by President Donald Trump’s youngest child, Barron Trump, is calling on lawmakers to pass stricter gun laws in the wake of the Parkland massacre.
Robert Kosaky, head of St. Andrew’s Episcopal School in Potomac, Maryland, was one of more than 100 school leaders from the Washington, D.C. area to address gun violence in an open letter published Thursday in The Baltimore Sun.
"Children, our most most vulnerable citizens and our hope for the future, are dying from gun violence, again and again,” the letter stated. “We urge our President, our Congress, and our state leaders to enact specific, vigorous measures to reduce gun violence in our society, particularly in our schools.”
The letter went on to call for a more robust system of background checks and firearm registration, specifically toward weapons “capable of rapidly firing a vast number of deadly shots.” The call to action comes just over a month after a gunman opened fire using an assault-style rifle at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, killing 17 people.
In response to the Feb. 14 massacre, Trump and many Republican lawmakers have focused more on arming teachers than passing tighter gun laws. Trump initially proposed raising the age minimum to purchase an assault-style rifle, like the one used by the Parkland shooter, from 18 to 21. But after meeting with representatives from the National Rifle Association earlier this month, Trump cooled on the idea.
The school officials bashed the idea of arming teachers in their open letter Thursday.
“We need stronger mental health services and more effective communication among agencies responsible for the well-being of children, adults and families,” the letter stated. “What we do not need is to arm our teachers with guns, which is dangerous and antithetical to our profession as educators.”
A representative for the White House did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.
Dozens of students from St. Andrew’s Episcopal School, where Trump’s 11-year-old son matriculated in September, participated Wednesday in the National School Walkout to protest gun violence.