Trump meets Florida shooting survivors

USPresident Donald Trump on Friday visited a Florida hospital to offercomfort to those wounded in a mass school shooting, after the FBIadmitted it mishandled a tip about the troubled teen behind the massacrethat left 17 dead.The arrival of Trump and his wife Melania came atthe end of a difficult day for the families of those killed inWednesday’s rampage at a high school in Parkland, Florida, who learnedthat the carnage could perhaps have been averted.The FBI admitted ithad received a chilling warning in January from a tipster who said the19-year-old gunman, Nikolas Cruz, could be planning a mass shooting, butthat agents had failed to follow up.At Broward Health NorthHospital, where Trump met with survivors of the shooting, the presidentthanked the doctors, nurses and first responders for their “incredible”work, and described the carnage as “very sad.” He and his wife thenheaded to the Broward County sheriff’s office, where they met withFlorida Governor Rick Scott, Senator Marco Rubio, Sheriff Scott Israeland other law enforcement officers.Trump told the group he had metwith a female survivor who had been shot four times, including in thelung, adding that quick first responders had saved her life. “Give them araise,” he said.He later tweeted several pictures of himself andMelania, visiting with a survivor and her family, as well as posing withhospital staff.“We are committed to working with state and localleaders to help secure our schools, and tackle the difficult issue ofmental health,” Trump wrote in an Instagram post alongside the picture.Thepresident’s visit to the Parkland area north of Miami came amid growinganger among parents and students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas HighSchool over America’s seeming unwillingness to toughen gun control laws.“My princess wasn’t safe in that school,” said Andrew Pollack, speaking at the funeral of his 18-year-old daughter Meadow.“Please pray that this horrific tragedy never happens to another family.”Atthe evening briefing at the sheriff’s department, Rubio said: “This is acommunity and a state that is in deep pain and they want action to makesure this doesn’t happen again.” Trump replied: “You can count on it.”TheFBI made a stunning admission earlier in the day, saying a “personclose to Nikolas Cruz” made a call to the agency’s public tipline onJanuary 5 to “report concerns about him.”“The caller providedinformation about Cruz’s gun ownership, desire to kill people, erraticbehaviour, and disturbing social media posts, as well as the potentialof him conducting a school shooting,” the FBI said in a statement.Theinformation from the caller “should have been assessed as a potentialthreat to life” and forwarded to the agency’s Miami field office, itsaid.Instead, “no further investigation was conducted.”“We havespoken with victims and families, and deeply regret the additional painthis causes all those affected by this horrific tragedy,” said FederalBureau of Investigation director Christopher Wray, who took up his postin August.Wray said he was “committed to getting to the bottom ofwhat happened,” and Attorney General Jeff Sessions ordered an immediatereview to ensure “effective response to indications of potentialviolence.”But Scott, the state governor, nevertheless called for the FBI chief to step down, saying the failure to act was “unacceptable.”“Seventeen innocent people are dead and acknowledging a mistake isn’t going to cut it,” Scott said.Trump’svisit to the Parkland area — not far from his Mar-a-Lago resort, wherehe will spend the long President’s Day weekend — was not announced inadvance, perhaps because he risked being greeted with angry demands foraction on gun laws.“It’s illogical that the law says a minor can’thave a drink, but can buy a gun,” said 47-year-old Mavy Rubiano, whosechild survived the shooting.In Washington, the political response sofar makes it clear that the powerful pro-gun National Rifle Association— which spent $30mn to support Trump’s election in 2016 — remainsformidable.As with previous mass shootings, the focus of gun controladvocates was the easy availability of the AR-15, a civilian version ofthe US military’s M16.Millions have been sold around the UnitedStates, and AR-15-style rifles were used in the mass shootings in LasVegas, Sutherland Springs, Texas and Newtown, Connecticut.