US should fund safe schools, Trump backs gun lobby

Former US president Donald Trump on Friday slammed the Joe Biden government over the Texas school shooting. He alleged that the country was prioritising the Ukraine war over the security in schools. Addressing the National Rifle Association (NRA) annual meeting in Houston amid growing calls for stronger gun control measures, Trump said that the US government focus on funding for school security. “If the United States  we should be able to do whatever it takes to keep our children safe at home. We spent trillions in Iraq and Afghanistan and got nothing for it. Before we nation-build the rest of the world, we should be building safe schools for our own children in our own nation,” the former president added. "We spent trillions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and got nothing for it," Trump said. 

Trump rejected calls for tightened gun controls, saying decent Americans should be allowed firearms to defend themselves against "evil". He instead proposed a "top-to-bottom overhaul" of school safety, with fortified single points of entry including metal detectors and at least one armed police officer on every campus. He accused Democrats of stonewalling such security measures. The annual conference of the NRA, which boasts of five million members, is taking place 280 miles (450 km) from Uvalde, the scene of the worst school shooting in the US in a decade. Ahead of the event, several conservative speakers and musical performers announced they were backing out - including Texas Governor Greg Abbott, Senator John Cornyn and the manufacturer of the rifle used in the Uvalde attack.