The report instead focused on rescinding Obama-era disciplinary policies, improving mental health services and training school personnel in the use of firearms.
WASHINGTON — Unveiling a report commissioned by President Trump in the aftermath of a mass shooting last winter at a Florida high school, administration officials on Tuesday played down the role of guns in school violence while focusing instead on rescinding Obama-era disciplinary policies, improving mental health services and training school personnel in the use of firearms.
The report — by the Federal Commission on School Safety, which consists of four cabinet officials and is led by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos — drew on months of research marked by political conflict and mixed messaging from the administration on how to handle violent events like the Feb. 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. Seventeen students and staff members were killed and 17 others were injured in the shooting.
The commission released its findings on the same day that the Justice Department, as expected, issued a rule banning bump stocks, the devices that effectively convert semiautomatic rifles into fully automatic ones by permitting the guns to continuously fire with one squeeze of the trigger. The gunman in the October 2017 massacre of concertgoers in Las Vegas had used bump stocks while killing 58 people and wounding hundreds.
In the end, the report, which officials said drew on input from mental health professionals and families from eight states, largely echoed the public statements of the president, who has repeatedly and publicly promoted the idea of arming school officials and went so far as to back a proposal by the National Rifle Association that would give those officials a bonus.
[ Read the report.]
Though Ms. DeVos had considered the possibility of funding firearms for school officials, a senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said during a call with reporters that the report in “no way” recommended federal funds be used to arm school personnel. It does, however, recommend school resource officers and armed school staff members in communities that welcome them.
The report concluded that “existing research does not demonstrate that laws imposing a minimum age for firearms purchases have a measurable impact on reducing homicides, suicides or unintentional deaths.”
But the report also recommended that schools and communities examine ways to carry out extreme risk protection orders to temporarily seize firearms from people who appear mentally disturbed, though it emphasized that such efforts should be carried out without affecting “Second Amendment liberties,” senior administration officials said on Tuesday.
