Santorum: Instead of protesting, students should learn CPR

Mar 25, 2018

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Former Pennsylvania GOP Senator and CNN Commentator Rick Santorum said today that students protesting gun control legislation could better utilize their time by taking CPR classes and preparing for possible future school shootings.

Santorum’s comments were made on CNN’s State of the Union program. The former presidential candidate stated, “How about kids instead of looking to someone else to solve their problem, do something about maybe taking CPR classes or trying to deal with situations that when there is a violent shooter that you can actually respond to that.”

Students’ March For Our Lives

Santorum was adamant about putting the responsibility on the shoulders of the students and their communities when he stated, “They took action to ask someone to pass a law,” Santorum said. “They didn’t take action to say, ‘How do I, as an individual, deal with this problem? How am I going to do something about stopping bullying within my own community? What am I going to do to actually help respond to a shooter?’… Those are the kind of things where you can take it internally, and say, ‘Here’s how I’m going to deal with this. Here’s how I’m going to help the situation,’ instead of going and protesting and saying, ‘Oh, someone else needs to pass a law to protect me.'”

These comments come just one day after protesters assembled at March for Our Lives events in Washington and across the country.

Santorum Did Not Go Unchallenged

CNN Liberal commentator Van Jones interjected with a difference of opinion, while mentioning his own child was about to start high school, “I want him focused on algebra and other stuff,” said Jones. “If his main way to survive high school is learning CPR so when his friends get shot … that to me, we’ve gone too far. I’m proud of these kids. I know you’re proud of these kids too.”

According to CNN, Santorum’s comments also prompted a statement from Everytown for Gun Safety program manager Erica Lafferty, whose mother was shot and killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

The statement read: “Rick Santorum’s words are an insult to the kids of Parkland, my family and to the countless others who have had loved ones taken by gun violence. My mother was killed while protecting her students at Sandy Hook School. For anyone to suggest that the solution to gun violence is for kids to learn CPR is outrageous, and indicative of the NRA’s desire to do or say anything except strengthen America’s weak gun laws.”