Santorum: ‘I Did Misspeak’ In Telling Kids To Learn CPR Instead Of Marching For Gun Control

Rick Santorum is trying to walk back comments he made suggesting teenagers protesting gun violence would be better served by taking CPR classes instead of demanding stricter gun laws.

Santorum, a former Republican senator from Pennsylvania, had made his original comments Sunday while on CNN’s “State of the Union.” On a panel there, he dismissed the March for Our Lives rallies – which had drawn hundreds of thousands of protesters across the country the day before – as a “political movement” that was supported by “Hollywood elites” and “liberal billionaires.”

“Is this really all about politics or is it all about keeping our schools safe?” Santorum told his fellow panelists. “Because if it is about keeping our schools safe, then we have to have a much broader discussion than the discussion that’s going on right now. 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, if there is a violent shooter – …”

Here he was cut off by the host, who argued that, by peacefully protesting, “the kids” had indeed taken action after a Feb. 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. The mass shooting – already one of several to take place at a school in 2018 – left 17 students and staff members dead, and galvanized a new generation of activists, including many teenagers from Parkland.

“They took action to ask someone to pass a law,” Santorum retorted. “They didn’t take action to say, ‘How do I, as an individual, deal with this problem? How am I gonna do something about stopping bullying in my community? What am I gonna do to actually help respond to a shooter?’ ”

His comments would soon reverberate across social media and draw the wrath of thousands who accused Santorum of victim blaming. In particular, many members of the medical community bristled at Santorum’s idea that CPR would be in any way effective in saving people who had been shot by an AR-15 rifle.

On Wednesday, Santorum appeared on CNN’s “New Day” and said he had not used the proper term before, though he did not specify which term he had intended to use.

“The fact of the matter is, I did misspeak in using the term CPR,” he told host Chris Cuomo, adding a joke about the job security of CNN chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta. “It obscured the larger point.”

What he had meant to focus on, Santorum told Cuomo, were “the positive things that have come out of these mass shootings.” He named organizations that had focused on mentoring and bullying prevention, describing the groups as “people who have actually focused on what we can do at our individual schools and communities to actually prevent these types of things.”

(c) 2018, The Washington Post · Amy B Wang

{Matzav.com}