go starting about 2 minutes after the meeting, we are going to work. this is a long-term situation we have to solve. we will solve it together. you're gone through customer neri pain, and we don't want others to go through the kind of pain you have gone to. it wouldn't be right. would you like to say something? >> thank you, mr. president . my name is curtis kelly. i represent thurgood marshall academy here in the district of columbia. vice president, madam secretary, thank you for having myself. my tragedy started september 20 of last year. i have two twin sons that attend

thurgood marshall. they are elite athletes, junior olympics. one of my sons was a youth council member for district of columbia and ward 5. one day -- this is after school. i agree we need to protect our kids in schools, but we need to protect them more in safe passageways home as well. extracurricular activities and parks and recreation's. my sons went to college bound after school to announce he was declaring for his college to run track and further his education, become mayor of district of columbia or something like that. on his route home, he got a text from my other son who wasn't going to make -- he found out e

would be press and he decided not to go. they are texting each other, watch out. there is someone in our passageway coming home. in a split second, zaire was walking home, maybe from this distance to where the curtains are. he was that close to home when a thug came out to try to rob his brother. he tried to rob them both. he came back. he didn't get those students. he caught my son, got in an altercation over a cell phone, shot my son in the head and know he is not here with us. that day, i could've lost two sons. the tragedy my family has to live with after losing zaire. i have another son that attend

thurgood marshall. we have been taking him to all types of family counseling and therapy and the school has been effective. the community has been effective. local politicians there. what we want to do is stand up for our students in the community. give us some solutions as to what we can do. myself along with helping hands in d.c. came together and got with our attorney. we said okay, we are going to do some research and find out what legislation can be found they can better serve to protect our students in their safety zones, their school zones. it's been a fight because everybody will show up for photo ops, all the politicians show up to say we are going to get it done. we are going to protect our kids. but a couple weeks later, school shooting, just like we are all hearing about, all experiencing,

at a senior high school. a kid got shot at school. in our school, on their safe passageway home, parks and recreation, extracurricular. our students have to be protected. our students have to be protected. one local legislator asked me, how do you find student? how would a criminal define student? you define them after you commit a crime against them. the students are crying. they are calling for a national standout day, april 20. in celebration of columbine because the same incidents keep happening, not just in schools, in our communities as well. to upstanding citizens, those were doing the right thing. we as parents are trying to fight to pass legislation just like you, locally. nationally, this campaign has grown and it's affecting all of

us, all our kids. gun violence. gun violence. thank you. that's my story, and we're going to keep fighting and keep trying to pass legislation and they're going to keep fighting for our students. thurgood marshall here in the district of columbia and across america as well. >> president trump: thank you very much. it's incredible. we are sad. thank you very much. does anybody have an idea for a solution for the school shootings we have gone through over the years? we have seen too much of it and we are going to it. there are a lot of different ideas. i can name ten of them right now. does anybody have an idea as to how to stop it? what is your recommendation to stop it? yes. >> i don't know if i'm going to

say something you haven't already heard. i can tell you that in addition to all of the sorrow we are feeling in our community right now, there's also a lot of anger. anger that the police can visit a person dozens of times and not take action. anger that the fbi could get at least two credible tips and not take action. one possible solution which we discussed with secretary devos, if the tragedy strikes, can we wait for the first responders to get to the campus four or five or six or 7 minutes later. one possible solution which may not be very popular would be to have people in the school -- teachers, administrators who have volunteered to have a firearm safely locked in the classroom for a given training

the year. there are plenty of teachers who already licensed to carry firearms. have them raise their hands to volunteer for the training, and when something like this starts, the first responders are already on campus. if it is not the teachers, you could have people that work on the campus. a custodian could be an undercover policeman. somebody who works in the library or the 1 could be an undercover policeman. he served lunch every day but he also has a firearm at the ready. a guidance counselor. if you can't stop it from happening and with hundreds of millions of guns out there, i don't know if it will ever be fully stopped. but the challenge becomes, once it starts, ten ended as quickly as possible. unfortunately you can't wait five or six or 7 minutes.

what my daughter said earlier, but there are 32 states that have laws that require the schools to prepare for this, and yet more than half -- and broward county is one of them and our school was prepared. saint god it was only 17 lives but would more than half the counties won't spend the money out of their budget for the training, even though the losses they should, it will be that many more the next time. between having the schools train for lockdowns and possibly having armed personnel staff that are willing to do it, the outcome anonymously. i don't want the kids know who have the firearms. i don't want the shooters to know who have the firearms. i don't want people walking around with firearms on their side. but when that alert goes off and they put the kids in the closets and put the kids under the desk, then i want the teacher to open

that safe, pull out the firearm come and be ready to do what needs to be done while you're waiting for the helicopters and s.w.a.t. teams. >> i think you need more deputies. you have a campus, 3200. one deputy? one. if that deputy leaves for a training, we need another deputy there. the other thing is communicatio communication. schools have to communicate with the police. police have to communicate with child services. child services maybe has to communicate with fbi. for someone to buy a gun at 18, to even do a background in

15 minutes. you should be able to communicate with all of those other people that something is wrong and this child doesn't belong buying a gun like this. >> mr. president, mr. vice president, secretary. thank you for having us. i think what you're hearing is there and is no lack of solutions. there is a lack of leadership. i am confident you will bring out the leadership we need to finally take the action that needs to be taken. there is not one solution. there is many solutions, and you're hearing some of those today, to resolve it, address it. our schools are soft targets. we need to harden the targets by making them, to increase our deterrence capabilities. a potential murderer knows that's not going to happen. there's going to be people there ready to respond, that the minute something happens, our technology will pick up an

incident has occurred and it will be responded to immediately. teachers and children know what to do. they are communicated with effectively. we need to identify where this mental health issue is among the student population. the kids at the school knew this person. they knew he was an issue. the fbi knew. i think we need to close some of these loopholes in the background check system where we are not integrating effectively the mental health knowledge that exists at the state level, at the local level, into the federal background check system. fixing the system, that's an easy one. immediate steps we can take. longer-term solutions. i think we need to get started right away. i thank you for your help on this. >> president trump: background checks are going to be very strong. we need that. after we do that, we see there is trouble, we have to nab them. years ago we had mental hospitals, mental institutions.

we had a lot of them. a lot of them have closed. some people thought it was a stigma. some people thought it was legislators thought it was too expensive. today if you catch somebody, they don't know what to do. he hasn't committed the crime but he may very well. there is no mental institution. there is no place to bring them. we have that a lot. even if they caught this person. i am being nice when i use the word person. they probably wouldn't have known what to do. they are not going to put him in jail. there is no middle ground of having that institution where you have trained people they could handle it. and do something about it. find out how sick he really is because he is a release that guy. he should have been nabbed a number of times. your concept about concealed carry, it only works where you have people very adept at using firearms, of which you have man

many. it would be teachers and coaches, if the coach had a firearm in his locker when he ran at this guy. that coach was very brave. saved a lot of lives are suspect. if he had a firearm, he wouldn't of had to run. he would have shot and that would've been the end of it. this would only be obviously for people who are very adept at handling a gun. it's called concealed carry where a teacher would have a concealed gun on them. they would go for special training and they would be there, and you would no longer have a gun free zone. gun free zone to a maniac, because they are all cowards, a gun free zone is "let's go in and let's attack." bullets aren't coming back. if you do this, and a lot of people are talking about it, it's certainly a point we will discuss. concealed carry for teachers and

for people of talent, of that type of talent. let's say you had 20% of your teaching force. that's pretty much the number. you said it. an attack has lasted on average about 3 minutes. it takes five to 8 minutes for responders, for the police to come in. the attack is over. if you had a teacher who was adept at firearms, they could very well and they tag very quickly. the good thing about a suggestion like that -- we are going to be looking at a very strongly. i think a lot of people are going to be opposed to it. a lot of people will like it. you can't have 100 security guards in stoneman douglas. that's a big school, massive school with a lot of acreage to cover, a lot of floor area. so that would be certainly a

situation that is being discussed a lot by a lot of people. he would have a lot of people that would be armed. they would be ready. they are professionals. they may be marines that left the marines, left the army, left the air force, and they are very adept at doing that. he would have a lot of them and they would be spread evenly throughout the school. so the other thing i really believe that if these cowards knew that that was -- that the school was well guarded from the standpoint of having pretty much professionals with great training, i think they wouldn't go into the school to start off with. i think it could very well solve your problem. so we will be doing the background checks. we'll be doing a lot of different things that will be certainly looking at ideas like that. you know, a lot of people don't understand that airline pilots, a lot of them carry guns. and i have to say that things have changed a lot. people aren't attacking the way they would routinely attack.

maybe you have the same situation in schools. does anybody like that idea here? does anybody like it? right, yes? meadow. your beautiful meadow. do people feel strongly against it, anybody, anybody? strongly against it. we can understand both sides. certainly it's controversial. but we will study it along with many other ideas. anybody else, something to say? go ahead. >> i've been in thousands of schools across america. in israel, they have one entry points. it's very well guarded. i'm not asking for that. i'm not saying we should turn our schools into prisons but i've been in so many schools or i'm speaking. i was outside to call my wife or get a breath of fresh air. it is so easy to get back in the school.

i can tap on a window, they will open the door. or i can catch someone coming out a side door and get in. one of the things i have thought a lot about, sing this around the country, we have really soft entry points. >> president trump: that's true. we can do something about that. yes, sir, go ahead. >> good afternoon. i am brandon thompson. my heart goes out to everyone who is experiencing this tragedy right now. i am currently dean of students at friendship tech prep in the e hurt the -- in d.c. at our school, we have checkpoints. when a student walks in the door, we have metal detectors. often times i see that in urban education. we have an x-ray machine that students put their bags through

and right after this incident happened, apparent who didn't so much agree with it at first sent me an email saying thank you because now i see exactly what's happening. we oftentimes use that tsa model. when a student comes in, we have somebody at the door to greet them to do a check in to see how they feel. we have certain point people. i know this person is not feeling so well so they won't get past .1. they go through the metal detector. their bag goes through the machine. at the end the day, just talking to my students today, they say i feel safe. you come outside. you talk about mental hospitals. our schools across the street from a shut down mental hospita hospital. once you get inside the building, we have a family feel. we have check-in points. we have it where every visitor who comes to the building has to go through checkpoints to ensure

our students get home safe, to ensure our staff members get home safe. these are just minor solutions. i will say i'm against having a teacher with a gun in a building. teachers are emotional. people are emotional. i think that's a huge factor. having students, you may have to go to the staff members going through these checkpoints to ensure their mental is on point and that we are talking about they don't have any physical metal on them. in our building, our students don't even carry cell phones because we consider it's a threat. they turn in their cell phones. it's taking way from their learning. we are ensuring our kids are in the moment, to live the moment and enjoy school. they get their joy factor, their family feel, they can connect with one another and communicate and not worry about looking over their shoulder when they walk in and out of the building. they know every person who comes in the building has been through

a metal check. my heart goes out to everyone who's been through this tragedy. >> president trump: very well said. >> thank you for being open to hearing all forms of solutions. i truly appreciate that. one point on the mental health issue, and i think it's important to note that someone with a mental illness is highly unlikely to ever commit an act of violence. it's a very, very small percentage. what we are really dealing with is a lack of mental wellness around anger and fear. that's not something you can diagnose and put in mental health hospitals. this is more about funding for mental health services to help these individuals that are at risk. especially when we think about suicide. teen suicide, suicide is the number two killer of our children as i understand right now. a lot of these suicides are performed with firearms which makes them unfavorable.

the idea of identifying who is going into crisis. i appreciate the point on arming teachers. it's not personally something that i support. rather than armed them with a firearm, i would rather arm them with the knowledge of how to prevent these acts from happening in the first place. how do you identify the kids in your class or most at risk. most importantly, how do we have a safety assessment program so that schools know how to deal with these threats. have established protocols to deal with them and get underneath the surface of what's going on in that child's life. find out why they are on this pathway of behavior and intervene. it's about prevention. there are some fabulous solutions being talked about today which still go to imminent danger. let's talk about prevention. there is so much we can do to help people before it reaches that point. i urge you please stay focused on that as well. it's the gun.

it's the person behind the gun. and it's about helping people before they ever reach that point. >> thank you. i fully respect all of our amendments, including the second. but in maryland, they have proven that the second amendment does not protect these types of weapons. they have banned over 45 different kinds of assault weapons, including dar. including the ar. they have limited magazine sizes. they have proven it's not like we have to lose our second amendment. the second amendment i believe was for defense. and i fully respect that. like i said. these are not weapons of

defense. these are weapons of war. and i still can't fathom that i myself am able to purchase one. >> i couldn't agree -- i'm not here to debate. i lost my sister. like mr. president said, if you can find 20% of maybe retired law enforcement officers or teachers you could go through for training to carry a firearm, it could have been a very different situation. like you said, law enforcement, it takes them 7 minutes, 8 minutes to get there. if a teacher or security guard has a concealed license and a firearm on their ways, they are able to easily stop the situation. or the bad guy, i will put it that way, they would not even go

near the school knowing someone can fight back against them. also i believe that it's insanity they would even open the gates up 20 minutes before school ends. they are supposed to protect us and the children. so in the future, we need more security. we need more firearms on campus. we need better background checks. and we need to study more on mental health. i want to thank everyone for their condolences. and that's my only argument. thank you. >> thank you, mr. president, vice president. my deep condolences to those who have lost family and friends. my name is curtis lawrence. i am principal at friendship collegiate academy. we have security and we also have mpd on staff we hire to

make sure things aren't coming into our school. this immediately, in the mornings and during dismissal, immediately around the school to protect our kids as they leave. last month we did suffer a loss. one of our ninth graders was gunned down in walking distance from our school. we talk about safe passage. looking at what's happening with gun violence with our scholars and students. you have to protect kids in school. you have different laws in different states. definitely where they don't have the necessary security we may have. they may have to think what are the solutions for the kids in florida that are going to schools, to make sure they are safe in schools. in places like here in d.c., what are the solutions to make sure kids are able to get home and to school safely. it's a two-pronged approach, and i know your position as you meet with governors and they have

different laws coming from different perspectives, the two-pronged approach to protect them in school and out of school, going back and forth. >> thank you so much. mr. president, mr. vice president, madam secretary, allowing us to speak about this very serious problem. my heart breaks for the families of parkland. i have a sense of what you're going through now. i have been going through it for five years. this is my son daniel. he was 7 years old when he was shot to death in his first grade classroom in sandy hook elementary school a little over five years ago. my wife jackie could not be here today because she is a schoolteacher. she takes that job seriously and sent me as the ambassador. jackie is a career educator, and she will tell you she has spent over a decade in the bronx.

she will tell you school teachers have more than enough responsibilities right now than to have to have the awesome responsibility of lethal force to take a life. [applause] nobody wants to see a shoot out in a school. a deranged sociopath on his way to commit an act of murder in a school, knowing the outcome is going to be suicide, is not going to care if there is somebody there with a gun. that is their plan anyway. i'm going to build on what my friend and colleague nicole hockley said. we tried this legislative approach. i've been in this building before many times, wringing our hands, pleading with legislators, what can we do. we said we have to go home and do this ourselves. and we built something. sandy hook promise has built something that works. we train students, and we train teachers and we train educators

with the tools how to recognize these people. with the tools of how to intervene and with the tools to get them the help they need before they pick up a gun or any other weapon and committed a horrible tragedy. it works. we don't charge for it. we are not asking for money. we have already stopped school shootings. we have already prevented suicides. we have already captured other social issues like bullying and cutting. we know that it works. we have a solution right here. we are asking for you to please help. we need to do this nationally now. thank you. >> mr. president, i would like to take the opportunity to thank you and the vice president and to saying everyone here for joining us for telling your stories, your perspectives. please know this is the

beginning of a long conversation. we are committed to seeing a solution to this very, very tragic and horrible situation. know that our hearts will continue to be with all of the families affected here. thank you for being with us today. >> president trump: thank you, betsy. thank you, mike. thank you, everyone for being with us. we are going to work very hard. it's very difficult, very complex. we are going to find a solution. we have been looking at this issue for a long time, too long as far as i'm concerned. you will be back but you will be back in a much more positive light. we will get there. if you have any suggestions, if you have any feelings as to what we should do, because there are many different ideas. some i guess are good. some aren't good.

some are very stringent, as you understand. a lot of people think they work and some are less so. but in addition to everything else, in addition to what we are going to do about background checks, we are going to go very strong into age. age of purpose. we are also going to go very strong into the mental health aspect of what's going on. here was a case where this person was sick, very sick, and people knew he was very sick. i know law enforcement -- i learned a lot about this. we are going to look at the institutions. we are going to look at what you do when you find something like this because again, right now we are not equipped like we were many years ago. so we are going to look at that whole aspect of what's going on. i want to thank everyone. you've been through a lot, more than you ever thought possible. more than you ever thought

humanly possible. all i can say is we are fighting hard for you. we will not stop. we will not stop. we are going to get there. to me, there can be nothing worse than what you've gone through. again, thank you for your ideas, your thoughts. thank you for pouring out your hearts because the world is watching. we are going to come up with a solution. god bless you all. thank you. [applause] >> dana: you have been watching president trump host an unprecedented and extra ordinary roundtable on school violence. many people they are in attendance have either been at a school shooting or they lost their loved ones in the school shooting. one of the great powers of the presidency is the power to convene. this is something we have not seen before, especially on this

issue where you had such raw emotion, outpourings of grief. the president listening super intently to all of them. asking about ideas. it was a very emotional and moving day, but it also gave you some hope that there could be some achievement going forward. the president said he's going to have them back that they would be coming back in a much better light, meaning hopefully their grief would subside because the president, they are going to act. jesse watters, your thoughts. >> jesse: america has reached a tipping point on school violence. some of us were tearing up watching the exchanges. it was really a raw and organic and powerful moment. the president takes in information verbally. that's how he takes his briefings. he was affected when he saw the pictures of the syrian children.

he talks about being a protector. protecting the border, protecting jobs and it's up to him to do whatever he can to protect the schools. a lot of politicians are all talk and no action. he's not one of them. i believe. he wants to take action that's going to have an impact, not just empty action that's not going to solve any problems. he talked about making america great again. he talked about making america safe again. one of the things that needs to be addressed is school safety. the best moment, andrew pollack, he lost his daughter meadow, he said forget about the gun issue. let's focus on making schools safe. there were some great exchanges of ideas, arming teachers at schools, enhanced background checks. this kid had been suspended. no one intervene. my father ran a school in long island.

after sandy hook, they built fences around the school. you cannot people just wandering in. teachers and administrators in the urban areas, they have metal detectors and checkpoints which are extremely effective. that's something to look at too. another great moment was when a guy, i believe from sandy hook, one of the fathers said we stop relying on washington to fix everything and we did ourselves. we taught teachers to intervene when they saw students with problems and take action aggressively. the best moment i think at the end, the guy said listen, we have lost our connections. as humans, as americans. we don't recognize people anymore. we don't see things. we miss signs. that's the bottom line. when you see something, say something. americans, we are all one nation. we have to care for one another. i think this is a starting point for some strong action. >> dana: the president talked about concrete things he is thinking about. the agent which you can buy a

gun, that is set federally. he talked about background checks, concealed carry. he mentioned that several times. people in a school that would have a gunboat you wouldn't know where that might be. >> greg: the interesting for for -- interesting thing for me, not just the suggestions but the tone and tenor of the conversation is incredibly important because we make jokes about the president reviewing his administration is a talk show. so what? that was one hell of a talk show. you have a bunch of people sitting there who know the topic and expressed suggestions, practical solutions about a horrible problem. my advice always stands. the biggest obstacle in this debate is trust. the loudest voices do not trust each other. those were not the loudest voices. those were the voices you had to listen to. what you found were people who disagreed but they disagreed

civilly. i thought this was probably one of the most valuable things i have seen in this administratio administration. i also, to jesse's point, darrell scott will, his daughter died at columbine. >> dana: no, just recently. >> greg: darrell scott. his point was about connection. what we saw was connection. we are too busy, in this world of division right now. what group do you belong to, the tribalism that infects everything from politics to identity. what he was trying to say is we need to connect. we connect in broadband. that's not the real thing. we have community. the thing is community means interaction between police and the people they police. it's a community. it's at sporting events, schools. people need to know who was in their community and need to be confident enough.

there was a binder full of practical solutions there. they could be acted upon. they were presented in a way that was nonthreatening to either side, that's what communication and connection is about. >> dana: we have this sound bite from darrell scott. >> i want to share one simple principle with you that we have learned over the years as we worked with millions and millions of young people. it comes from something you said last week in your speech. it was that we must create a culture of connectedness. we must create a culture in which our classmates become our friends. every single one of the school shootings have been from young men who are disconnected. and we talked a lot about the mental health issues but it actually goes deeper than that because there is a lot of mentally ill children that are kind and compassionate. the focus really needs to be on how can we connect. >> dana: that was powerful for

a lot of people. we wanted to play that sound bite for you. >> juan: i think today is a wonderful day in terms of people hearing voices. earlier today, you have the students from parkland who went to tallahassee to the state capital in florida. they are arguing there that again, we need action. they are tired of the status quo. it was amazing -- an amazing turnout. i was struck by the idea that these are people who are 15, 16 years old. most of them were not seniors. some of them were high school freshman, but they spoke with such passion. some of them choking back tears to try to express not only their fears but what they had lost. similarly, i think at the white house meeting, the ability to hear from young people really strikes me as what's different. it changes the conversation because you can say oh, well, these young people don't have concrete ideas or better ideas. but i think they are touching something at the american

spirit, saying we have to find a solution. when you listen to what was being said, for example, at the white house meeting. i think it has a publicity angle but i don't think that's -- that's not what you get solutions. what you hear is this goes beyond schools. people who are saying my kids walking home from school or my kids walking over to an ap program or my kids waiting at the bus stop. there are so many guns around. how do we deal with it? how do you stop it? that's the challenge. but as someone said, we have tons of ideas for solutions. the american people, gun owners and nongun owners. nra and nonnra agreed basically on background checks, limiting weapons that become weapons of mass destruction. people agree on who and arguments about gun safety and preparedness and waiting periods. these are all very concrete

ideas. on the mental health side, the woman who stood up and said most people who have mental health issues are not the ones who are shooting up the place. that's a dodge from a difficult issue of dealing with the fact that we have a proliferation of guns. more guns and people in our country. it's crazy. >> dana: kimberly, i will give you a chance to remark on anything you want. >> kimberly: thank you. listening to the students expressing themselves so passionately and eloquently that they want to do something about this. the passion and because of their life and they weren't going to forget it. we owe that to the children, the students of america, to make sure that when they go through the school doors in the morning and the bell rings to go sit and pay attention in class that they are able to pay attention to the lesson and not worry about a gunman coming through the door to kill them. i want to take a moment to honor the lives of those that were lost and those that gave their lives trying to save others and in particular, yes, we talked a

lot about the coach was incredible and all the people who showed incredible valor in the face of tremendous adversity. instead of cowering in fear, they ran towards to try to save lives, like the junior rotc members that were absolutely so incredible. peter wang, 15 years of age. alaina petty, 14 years of age. and martin duque, also 14. imagine you have the presence of mind and the selflessness to say that i will stand in the way so others may live. >> dana: remarkable training from the rotc. >> kimberly: imagine if all the students were equipped with that kind of training and we gave them the means by which to protect themselves and we made schools a place where people said i'm not going to go there to commit an act of violence. i will not be able to permeate the air and go and do something and commit these horrific acts because they are protected. >> greg: you know what the media did about that?

they blamed the rotc. >> dana: they did? >> greg: that the killer was also trained. >> dana: oh. >> greg: instead of what kimberly acutely pointed out. peter wang, west point has admitted him. the three junior rotc cadets or maybe just peter wang. three died. >> kimberly: he wanted to go to west point. >> dana: they gave him a posthumous entrance into the academy. we have the sound from andrew pollack, as jesse, his daughter meadow died last week on wednesday, a week ago today. >> my daughter has no voice. she was murdered last week. she was taken from us. shot nine times on the third floor. i am very angry that this happened. it keeps happening. 9/11 happened once, and they fixed everything. how many schools, how many children have to get shot? it stops here with this administration and me. should have been one school

shooting and we should have fixed it. and i am pissed. my daughter i am not going to see again. she is not here. i didn't think it was going to happen to me. if i knew that, i would've been at the school every day if i knew it was that dangerous. it's enough. get together. work with the president and fix the schools. >> dana: his passion is certainly evident but also to have the ability to come to the white house with your sons, articulate yourself that well and make sure you articulate that it doesn't happen again. >> jesse: he really lit a fire under the president. i think that was the moment of the entire event the people really began to think this is never going to happen again. you could never listen to someone talk like that that passionately and forget it a few weeks later. something else interesting to me. we protect everything we value in this country with guns.

we protect banks. we protect politicians, celebrities. we protect congressmen. everything we value, we protect with guns. why don't we protect our children with guns? the 9/11 analogy is really critical. every school shooting is a mini 9/11 for that school and for those families in those communities. to have it happen over and over and over again, we have reached critical mass in this country. i think this is going to be the moment. >> dana: what about the tipping point? do you think culturally, maybe it's difficult to get the legislation through but it will happen this year? >> greg: i don't know. we live in a strange time where the news has accelerated so quickly. i am still -- like, we don't know what happened in vegas. this was utterly preventable. we saw how many mistakes. we still don't know anything

about the vegas thing. i don't think there was a possible way you could have stopped vegas because we don't even know how long he planned. when somebody plans something, it's going to happen. if somebody is smart and has a plan. i have said this before. 9/11 was the second time, right? the second attack on the world trade center. they went back and planned. they tried it once and they came back and did it again. as long as there is evil in the world, there will be these incidents and we can't expect them to disappear like that. however, i will say this. these practical solutions are actually practical. i heard a motion but i also heard rationality. it wasn't simply people shouting "do something." what you heard were people who were actually expressing practical, rational solutions to a problem. that's already in my mind progress and we are actually

talking about it. i would suggest, something like this. i haven't seen anything like this before but a townhome like this, pertaining to other issues like this. where people are intimately involved, involving the president. it's an interesting thing and could be something. again, go back to donald trump. his presidency is a talk show. maybe that's not so bad because that's the talk show you need. >> juan: i don't agree. i think you're going to need to have some kind of resolution with the right wing talk show hosts and nra, the people who will say you're taking away my guns. >> greg: it goes back to the trust issue. >> juan: when you have a meeting like this, it's terrific in terms of having a cathartic moment. i think for all of us as a country to hear the pain in the families, to understand it's like a 9/11. it's your child commits her family. that man standing up there saying he will never see his daughter again. why didn't we fix this? that's powerful stuff.

but in terms of actually resolving it, i think you need to get people together. >> dana: i have to stop you there. we'll have more on the president's listening session on gun safety when "the five" returns. stay with us. we will be right back. ♪ applebee's handcrafted burgers. any burger just $7.99. now that's eatin good in the neighborhood. mom anit's not theirs.car... it's mine. mine. mine. and it always will be, forever and forever. the new rx 350l with three rows for seven passengers. experience amazing at your lexus dealer.

>> we actually have checkpoints when a student walks in the door, we have metal detectors. we have an x-ray machine they put their bags through. right after this incident happened, parent who didn't so much agree with it at first, sent me an email saying thank you because now i see exactly what's happening. we oftentimes use the tsa model when the student comes in. we have somebody at the door to greet them to do a check-in, to see how they feel. we have point people. i know this person is not feeling so well. they won't get past .1. they get through the metal detector. their bag goes through the machine. at the end of the day, talking to my students. they say i feel safe. >> dana: that was brandon thompson from friendship tech prep in southeast d.c. he was talking about at their school they have had metal detectors for a long time. we don't have that all across the country but another

possible, practical solution. >> greg: hardening soft targets. we have metal detectors at fox. i am fairly certain you can't walk in with a weapon. >> kimberly: where are the metal detectors. >> greg: i am assuming we do. maybe just for me. we have armed security. this is a hard target. it should be a trillion dollar industry because powerful industries are hardening already. why are not public places hardens? 3,000 people out of place, they deserve to be protected. metal detectors, security, concealed carry. it's all about hardening soft targets. when that happens, another soft target will develop because people move to the easiest target. then you adapt and change. >> juan: i think the softest target, as someone said, to me

the biggest danger with guns is some gang banger is going to shoot at somebody else or hit my family. >> greg: handgun deaths, more by far, in a year then rifle. >> juan: i am saying on a personal basis. this is what scares me. when you hear people talk about it, what are we going to do, how are you going to harden the walking out the door? >> dana: you can't do everything but one of the things this gentleman was saying is at their school, because they have this protection going into the school. they said also they check in with people if they think they're having one of those days and they are worried about it. but at least it gives the comfort to students that they can do what they are supposed to be doing at school, which is to learn. >> jesse: there is no silver bullet here obviously. there's going to be a whole

array of solutions. my greg said, they are not going to completely ever prevent another shooting at a school. in inner cities, you have these big, big school buildings. architecturally there is usually one or two doors to go in and out. those checkpoints make sense to put a metal detector in. maybe a rural school or something in the middle of florida communal for sprawling campus with lots of different entrances in different buildings. that's not a solution there. may be a solution there is to have an armed security guard or armed head coach to intervene. i think the intervention thing here is the key. this kid should have been flagged. in freshman year, he should have been flagged. if you are suspended that many times and you've had a mobile crisis unit called to the school to say this guy might hurt himself or somebody else. i don't know if he was suspended or expelled or transferred to another at risk school. there are so many red flags here. you have to put it into a centralized database and you have to make sure it gets into

the fbi background check. this guy's threat matrix was through the roof. the fbi dropped the ball twice on it. >> juan: number one, and this is something where trump and i agree, number one is that guy shouldn't have been able to get a gun. >> jesse: i agree. no one without profile should never be able to get an ar-15. >> kimberly: forget an ar-15. any gun. >> jesse: the ar, if you bump it to age 21, the ar is a very popular weapon. it's used in rural communities for target, big game, small game, sport. people like it. it's stylish. you can customize it, personalize it. it's very accurate. if you ban an 18-year-old from getting an ar-15 the was going to stop them from going in with a shotgun or long rifle. it's not a perfect solution but i'm open to the idea.

>> juan: i think the president has an idea here that's going to come to fruition which is that kid shouldn't have had a gun. what steps can we have taken? preventing that young man from legally obtaining a gun. illegal guns is another issue but -- >> greg: the defensive position, how do you rig the system to keep the guns away, is wrong. the old offensive strategy is to tag the perp. you have school officials, police, students. there is a database. a person there is a problem, they go in the database and they don't get a gun. that's an offensive strategy that leaves law-abiding gun owners alone and goes after the felons and the sick. >> juan: a lot of people object. they say why is my name being put in there. >> dana: there are going to be objections. kimberly, i want to ask you from

a law enforcement standpoint, for the shooter, flagged several times. is there a point you think, it's a federal law or state and local law, that would allow law enforcement to intervene earlier? >> kimberly: i think you probably have to have both. there has to be control and autonomy at a local, state level. local ordinances to make sure they have the tools. i think there should be metal detectors at schools. why not. look at the schools that have the metal detectors. this isn't that difficult to figure out that it's not just about making sure that guns don't get in the wrong hands. it's about protecting the environment. how many times you have to learn the same lesson over and over a. schools are a target. why? because we have continued to allow them to be. we have not allow the schools to equip themselves and protect themselves and protect the students. why not? i can fly on a plane tonight and

go through tsa and all kinds of stuff but a child goes to school and there are no protections. so many places. i think it's unacceptable. believe me, if somebody is hell-bent on going in and killing and taking lives, they will find a way and a means to do it. you can focus and get hypersensitive about the ar-15 or you can talk about how we can prevent this from happening in general. it's really multifaceted in terms of the approach and platform that's needed. if you are just focusing on oh, we need to ban guns. we need to do this. you are really missing a large part of the problem. >> dana: read, what about the possibility of technology improving -- we think about metal detectors being clunky. it slows you down. that's why people say they don't want metal detectors at subway stops. you don't want to be slowed down. is technology going to help us? >> greg: i don't know. i think technology as it helps

us advance also hurts us. when drones are married to other kinds of agents, that's going to be an issue in the future. not simply just for the mass shooter aspect. in general. it's a double-edged sword and no pun intended. >> juan: i worry about, listening to kimberly, movies. you go to the movies, the basketball game, baseball game. every where now there's going to have to be magnetometers. getting away from the fact that no one wants to say we've got a problem with guns. >> jesse: not a lot of shootings at nba games. there is a lot of shootings at school. you have to prioritize. >> juan: in aurora we had the shooting at the movie theater. shooting at a concert in las vegas. >> jesse: right now we are focused on schools. >> kimberly: and the club in paris. >> juan: issues people don't want to deal with. >> greg: we just watch people

dealing with it. >> dana: have many days to talk about it, an extraordinary day where we watched the president do this amazing town hall on school shootings. that's it for us. bret is up with more reaction on the president's listening session. >> bret: president trump listens to students, parents and teachers about gun violence and preventing more school shootings following the massacre in florida. survivors of the attack rally at the state capital to pressure florida lawmakers for changes. we look back at the life of america's past or following the death of the reverend billy graham. this is "special report" ." good evening. welcome to washington. i am bret baier. one week after the deadly shooting at us how for the high schooler claim 17 lives, and forever changed many times that. survivors brought their demand for new gun controls a