This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Students who escaped the deadly school shooting in Florida have focused their anger at Donald Trump, saying that his response to the attack has been needlessly divisive.

“You’re the president. You’re supposed to bring this nation together, not divide us,” said David Hogg, a 17-year-old student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school on NBC’s Meet the Press.

“How dare you,” he added.

Post-Columbine generation demands action on guns: 'We don't deserve this' Read more

Hogg was responding to the president’s tweet on Saturday that Democrats had not passed any gun control measures during the brief time they controlled Congress with a supermajority in the Senate. Trump also alluded to the FBI’s failure to act on tips that the suspect was dangerous, while bemoaning the bureau’s focus on Russia’s role in the 2016 election.

After more than a day of criticism from the students, the White House said the president would hold a “listening session” with unspecified students on Wednesday and meet state and local security officials Thursday.

Sudents across the country are organising rallies and a national walkout in support of stronger gun laws in a challenge to politicians they say have failed to protect them.

On Sunday, students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas, where Nikolas Cruz is accused of killing 17 people last week, joined others on social media to plan the events.

These will include a “March for Our Lives” protest in Washington on 24 March to call attention to school safety and ask lawmakers to enact gun control.

They also plan to rally for gun control, mental health issues and school safety on Wednesday in Tallahassee, Florida’s state capital. The students were expected to meet a lawmaker who is seeking to ban the sale of assault-style weapons such as the AR-15 allegedly used by Cruz.

Play Video 2:43 'How about we stop blaming the victims?': Florida shooting survivors speak at anti-gun rally – video

Lane Murdock, 15, of Connecticut, was one of the students joining the campaign for a national walkout.

“I felt like it was our time to take a stand,” she said. “We’re the ones in these schools, we’re the ones who are having shooters come into our classrooms and our spaces.”

Murdock, who lives 20 miles (32km) from Sandy Hook elementary school where 20 children and six adults were shot to death five years ago, drew more than 50,000 signatures on an online petition on Sunday calling on students to walk out of their high schools on 20 April.

Instead of going to classes, she urged her fellow students to stage protests on the 19th anniversary of the mass shooting at Columbine high school in Colorado in which 15 people died, including the two killers.

Florida politicians, meanwhile, scrambled to produce legislation in response to the Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting.



In a TV interview, Republican senator Marco Rubio embraced a Democratic bill in the Florida legislature to allow courts to temporarily prevent people from having guns if they are determined to be a threat to themselves or others.

The state’s governor, Rick Scott, also a Republican, attended a prayer vigil at the First Church Coral Springs, a few blocks from the shooting site. He is expected to announce a legislative package with GOP leaders of the legislature this week.

Emma Gonzalez, a student who survived the attack, cited Trump, Rubio and Scott by name in a warning to politicians who are supported by the National Rifle Association.

“Now is the time to get on the right side of this, because this is not something that we are going to let sweep under the carpet,” she said on Meet the Press.

The students’ pointed comments are the latest signs of increased pressure for gun control after the massacre.

Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report