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US REPUBLICAN SENATOR Marco Rubio was put on the defensive last night by angry students, teachers and parents who are demanding stronger gun-control measures after the shooting rampage that claimed 17 lives at a Florida high school.
One of those confronting the Florida senator at a CNN’s Stand Up town hall last night was Fred Guttenberg, whose 14-year-old daughter Jaime was killed on 14 February with 16 others.
Rubio was the lone Republican at the nationally broadcast gathering after Florida’s GOP Governor Rick Scott and President Donald Trump declined invitations to appear at the event in Sunrise, Florida.
Guttenberg told Rubio that his comments about the shooting “and those of your president this week have been pathetically weak”.
People stood up and cheered Guttenberg as he challenged Rubio to tell him the truth, to acknowledge that “guns were the factor in the hunting of our kids”.
Guttenberg added: “And tell me you will work with us to do something about guns.”
Rubio responded that the problems laid bare by the shooting rampage “cannot be solved by gun laws alone,” drawing jeering whistles from the crowd.
Rubio said that he would support laws barring those 18 and under from buying such weapons, support changing the background checks system and getting rid of bump stocks.
He said that if he believed an assault weapons ban “would have prevented this from happening, I would have supported it”. That drew jeers.
Visibly angry, Guttenberg responded: “That is a weapon of war. The fact that you can’t stand with everyone in this room and say that… I’m sorry”. This drew further applause from the crowd.
Senator Bill Nelson and Congressman Ted Deutch, both Democrats from Florida, also were present on a dais.
Nelson said he grew up on a ranch and hunted all his life.
“I still hunt with my son but an AK-47 and an AR-15 is not for hunting, it’s for killing,” said Nelson to applause.
Ryan Schachter, whose brother Alex, was fatally gunned down at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, was among those questioning the lawmakers.
“I’m supposed to go back to school in the upcoming week,” said Schachter. “Me and my friends worry we are going to be murdered in our classrooms.”
Student Cameron Kasky did not mince words telling Rubio, “It’s hard to look at you and not look down the barrel of an AR-15 and not look at Nikolas Cruz” before asking squarely, “Can you tell me right now that you will not accept a single donation from the NRA?”
The room erupted in cheers as Rubio replied that people buy into his agenda and that he supports laws to keep guns out of the hands of deranged people.
Rubio said he does not support arming teachers and Nelson agreed saying Trump’s suggestion on arming them was “a terrible idea”.
Shortly before the town hall event opened, the sheriff of the Florida county torn apart by the rampage spoke to the cheering audience, drawing them to their feet as he exhorted them to press on for stricter gun controls.
Sheriff Scott Israel of Broward County declared the US has had enough of deadly shootings.
He said the young people should hold lawmakers accountable for making their schools and other community places safer or they won’t be re-elected.
“Never again,” he declared of the Parkland attack, telling the young people now taking action that “America’s watching you… there will be change”.
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Formerly the most stable state in the Middle-East. Hundreds of thousands dead and fundamental islamists set to capitalize on it. All because they decided to talk about pricing oil in Euro instead of the US dollar.
Truly terrifying what you can do with public opinion and a large military budget.
They’ve had a horrible last 50 years. First Saddam, now this. Terrible.
Re R H Beige Lark.
Well said. Libya was invaded for the same reason. It was going to take oil payments in anything, commodities, gold, euro etc. The threat to the Petrodollar was too much. I’m afraid Iran will go the same way unless they start taking payments in dollars again for their oil.
The US is a country teetering on the brink financially and the last thing they want is any upstart threatening to stop using Petrodollars. I believe the US government knows it is close to the abyss and hence the Sandy Hook massacre and Boston bombing events which have been orchestrated and planned to take more rights away from citizens, especially attempt to get high powered weapons away from people with subsequent pre planned legislation.
Libya actually had an excellent way of ending debt in African countries, they were about to introduce an African gold standard that countries would have to use to pay for African commodities
Couple of weeks later Libya is no more and the other African leaders are put back in their place
Gaddafi actually had some very bright ideas to make the middle east a very financially stable region, unfortunately it involve a threat to the petroldollar. If Libya and the others involve put their plan into action it would have put the dollar into a early grave by showing it’s true overwashed value. But hey they showed us that Libya, afgan and Iraq were evil countries that were a threat to mankind. We found the true hero’s in the middleeast like Saudi Arabia were it’s traditional to stone a woman to for wearing a dress that exposes flesh.
Sandy hook was orchestrated?! What a despicable comment!
You mean the same Iraq that gassed their own civilians? Or the same Libya which was trying to establish a modern empire of its own by invading and trying to annex Mali?
Rose-tinted glasses work both ways.
Seoirse, you are reaching a low with your comments. You are reading from the same script as b Lowe.
Niall, so if a African country receives gold for commodities what happens then? Please elaborate? There is a reason why the gold standard was dropped. Not every country has reserves of gold so how would they trade with Africa?
Must make a correction, I was referring to Libyan expansionism in Chad, not any involvement in Mali.
Re Niall.
You are exactly right with the gold dinar system Gaddafi was close to implementing.
The French President st the time, President Sarkozy, called it the greatest threat on history to the financial existence of mankind(wherein mankind for Sarkozy was France and a handful of other Western countries).
Imagine a system that was one of the greatest threats to mankind as described by an imperialist and it received zero coverage in Western media outlets.
Ah yes, the great legacy of the US/UK unprovoked illegal invasion and the papers still play the pipers tune.
A recent survey on the UK found the majority of people think fewer than 10,000 have died in Iraq since the invasion. Good to see Western media is giving an unbiased and objective accounting of Iraq over the years.
How can George Bush look in the mirror with all the murders and killings he has caused. He should be strung up and locked away for life and charged with war crimes!!! It breaks my heart every time I read about this :(
Sunni and Shia Muslims where killing each other centuries before anybody ever heard of George Bush or even America for that matter.
Re Al Shamen.
Yes, your point is valid but it is an inconsequential one.
The point is as a result of US stupidity this has been allowed to fester and there is an abundance of weapons available for these guys mow since General Petraeus started to arm these guys.
Iraq has always been awash with weapons.Apparently most households have access to an AK47.
Most of the weapons Al Qaeda use are Eastern Bloc.America has a lot to answer for but you cannot blame them for a centuries old sectarian feud that predates the foundation of that country.
Al Shamen – The US is awash with weapons too. Apparently most households have access to something that shoots bullets and they want to keep it that way. People get killed there in their droves on a daily basis and their human rights record is frankly appalling. There has also been civil war, sectarian strife and effective apartheid in the US within the last century. It has also engaged in criminal foreign wars. Again it is an irrelvancy to what has been said here.
Nobody has blamed the US for there having been age-old sectarianism in Iraq – though the CIAs involvement in keeping various factions at war is legendary – but people are right to expect the US to answer for its actions in recent times and to expect some sort of defence of those actions without it pulling in excuses like “there was always trouble so we can be excused of what we did to them”.
Well it was America who formed and funded the Al Queda to help them against the Russians, so America does have alot to answer for.
Democracy, don’t ya just love it! They do!
Every dog on the street knows the invasion was based on utter lies and a direct consequence of those lies is one and half million people dead……..spreading democracy ?? spreading death and destruction !!
Freedom!
Well Mr jingles freedom is what we have but when I look around all I see is people trapped in financial pain, there is a big problem with the system
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