WASHINGTON _ President Donald Trump told the nation's schoolchildren that they should not be scared a day after the worst high school shooting in American history.
"I want you to know you are never alone and you will never," he said.
In his first remarks about the shooting, Trump said he would be making a trip to Parkland, Fla., to comfort the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School community, but did not say when. He also said he would meet with state officials from across the country later this month to talk about how to make schools safer.
"We are committed to working with state and local leaders to help secure our schools and tackle the difficult issue of mental health," he said.
Trump spoke from the Diplomatic Room at the White House. Vice President Mike Pence, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and White House Social Media Director Dan Scavino accompanied him and stood in the doorway.
"We comfort the grieving and the wounded and we hurt for the entire community in Parkland, Florida," he said.
A 19-year-old former student was charged with killing 17 at the school just as students were being dismissed at the end of the school day Wednesday. At least 15 others were injured.
The president did not mention gun regulations or policy in his short address, only vaguely alluding to the issue saying, "It is not enough to simply take actions that make us feel like we are making a different. We must actually make that difference."
Democratic members of Congress immediately called on Trump and Republican leaders in the House and Senate to pass laws that would keep dangerous guns out of the hands of would-be criminals.
Trump's administration, however, has quietly loosened firearms restrictions in the United States. His administration has backed a pair of National Rifle Association-supported bills in Congress that would allow Americans to carry concealed firearms from state to state �" bypassing a confusing patchwork of laws �" and making it easier and cheaper to purchase silencers.
Hours before he spoke, Trump tweeted: "So many signs that the Florida shooter was mentally disturbed, even expelled from school for bad and erratic behavior. Neighbors and classmates knew he was a big problem. Must always report such instances to authorities, again and again!" He was immediately accused by some on social media of blaming the teenage victims.
But Trump, in month 2017, signed a bill behind closed doors that killed an Obama-era regulation that required the government to add to the no-buy list people whom the Social Security Administration has deemed eligible for mental disability payments.
His agencies narrowed the definition of "fugitive," a change that cuts the number of people who'll be included in a database designed to keep firearms from people who are barred from owning them. Federal officials have also signaled that they may no longer defend the Army Corps of Engineers' ban on carrying loaded firearms and ammunition on federal lands. He signed another one that lifted restrictions on hunting on federal lands in Alaska.
Last year, Trump became the first president to address the National Rifle Association annual meeting in more than three decades, pledging to repay gun owners for helping to win the White House.
The NRA was a strong backer of Trump from the start, unlike most traditional conservative organizations, many of which were leery of the brash businessman-turned-reality-TV-host and political novice. It endorsed him earlier than it had other candidates in previous years and became one of his top donors, with $30 million in contributions and TV ads that targeted his opponent.
His predecessor, Barack Obama, often spoke after some of the nation's most deadly mass shootings, but Trump has not. He did address the nation after a gunman opened fire on a crowd of concertgoers at a music festival on the Las Vegas Strip Oct. 1.
Trump has also ordered U.S. flags to be flown at half-staff at public buildings and grounds and signed a proclamation in honor of the victims.
"Our nation grieves with those who have lost loved ones in the shooting at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida," the proclamation states.
Trump is scheduled to spend the President's Day weekend at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, less than an hour from Parkland.
