In his latest attempt to push back calls for significant gun control, following the February 14 killing of 17 students and staff at a Florida high school, Donald Trump has said that he would have rushed in unarmed to stop the shooting.

Jumping from one thought to another in an hour-long speech to a governors’ conference at the White House, Trump said that he would have shown bravery “even if I didn’t have a weapon, and I think most of the people in this room would have done that, too”.

Trump also considered a return to the “old days” by locking potential criminals in mental hospitals. He repeated a minor concession with a vow to ban “bump stocks”, which can convert a semi-automatic rifle into a fully automatic weapon. He said, despite having pushed back background checks in the past year, that he would support a Congressional measure to strengthen them. However, he backed away from another mention of raising the age limit for purchasing a rifle from 18 to 21, amid opposition from the National Rifle Association.

A sheriff’s deputy at Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida did not go into the school as the shooter carried out his attack. Trump has targeted the man and three other deputies for days as “disgusting” and “a disgrace”.

Critics immediately used Trump’s record to question his claim of bravery, including his invocation of bone spurs in his feet to avoid service in the Vienam War, his actions on 9/11, and an encounter with an eagle on his desk.

Trump’s Uncomfortable Moment

Governors did not step in to check Trump’s rambling statement; however, he faced an uncomfortable moment when he was questioned by Governor Jay Inslee of Washington State.

Trump pursed his lips and crossed his arms tightly, appearing to check his temper, as Inslee questioned Trump’s proposal to arm teachers:

I’ve listened to the first-grade teachers that don’t want to be pistol-packing first-grade teachers. I just suggest we need a little less tweeting here and a little more listening. And let’s just take that off the table and move forward.

Further backing away from his initial presentation of the idea, made last week in a stream-of-consciousness statement to Douglas High School survivors and parents, Trump said, “It would just be a very small group of people that are very gun adept.”

Inslee responded that giving guns to any teachers would be wrong and urged Trump to abandon the idea. Trump quickly moved to remarks from Republican Governor Greg Abbott of Texas.