New York Sen. Chuck Schumer referred to as on Sunday for a federal security board meant to forestall and put together for college shootings to be reinstated — after it was disbanded final week by President Trump.
The Division of Homeland Safety’s faculty security board obtained the ax only some months after its first assembly and fewer than a 12 months after it was established.
Performing Homeland Safety Secretary Benjamine Huffman mentioned the division was “eliminating misuse of resources and ensuring that DHS activities prioritize our national security,” in keeping with a memo obtained by Schooling Week.
However Schumer mentioned not so quick. He referred to as on Trump to place the board again collectively, noting it was created below a 2022 regulation that handed after mass shootings at a grocery store in Buffalo and an elementary faculty in Uvalde, Texas.
“The Trump administration cannot bow down, yet again, to the likes of the NRA,” the Senate minority chief mentioned in a press release. “We’ve seen them do it before, but this most recent action of shutting down the school safety board and its work to try and prevent school shootings is just pathetic.”
Although the board was created as a part of a 2022 regulation, the Biden administration didn’t decide its members till July 2024. It was made up of college and safety leaders from throughout the nation, together with a pair mother and father of college taking pictures victims. The board held its first, and up to now solely, assembly in October.
Emergency personnel collect outdoors Antioch Excessive Faculty after a taking pictures on Jan. 22 in Nashville. (Metro Nashville Police by way of AP)
Trump’s disbandment of the board largely flew below the radar final week, as the brand new president made a flurry of headline-grabbing strikes in his first week again in workplace. However Schumer insisted the varsity security board deserves consideration as effectively.
Nevertheless, the senator admitted anybody hoping for the board to reconvene can be counting on the actions of the Trump administration and incoming Homeland Safety Secretary Kristi Noem. Failing that, a lawsuit could possibly be dropped at compel Trump to observe the regulation.
“I think a lawsuit would definitely succeed,” mentioned Schumer, a Harvard Regulation graduate.
Final Wednesday, a 17-year-old boy walked into his Nashville, Tenn., highschool with a gun and fatally shot a 16-year-old classmate. In a private manifesto, he had written plans to shoot extra college students however he turned the gun on himself and died by suicide after the primary killing.
