CNN's Rick Santorum suggested that students should spend time learning how to perform CPR, or learning active-shooter drills, rather than searching for someone to solve their problems by protesting for legislative changes.
"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," Santorum said on CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday.
He continued, "They took action to ask someone to pass a law. 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?'"
Santorum's remarks implied that students hadn't taken any actions, and are the ones who are responsible for solving the issue of gun violence in America, or how easily accessibly guns are.
"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,'" Santorum continued.
It's certainly not the first time the former Republican senator from Pennsylvania has looked for a scapegoat when it comes to the issue of gun violence. In the weeks after the Parkland, Florida school shooting that left 17 dead, Santorum argued on CNN that broken homes and single mothers were to blame for mass shooters.
The remarks also come the day after hundreds of thousands of people marched across the globe in an effort to speak out and call for meaningful gun control.
But Santorum is wrong to assert that kids who have been outspoken about gun violence have simply been looking for someone else to solve their problems. When in fact, kids have ignited real change, and have forced a conversation that was long overdue in America.
A recent Fox News poll showed that 53 percent of respondents believed it was more important to protect citizens from gun violence than 40 percent who said it was more important to protect the rights of gun owners. And 91 percent said favored "requiring criminal background checks on all gun buyers, including those buying at gun shows and private sales."
But 43 percent said they didn't believe it was all likely that Congress would actually pass legislation on guns this year, while 38 percent said it's extremely important that lawmakers do.
Santorum's line of thinking deflects from the issue, and it has undermined efforts by students who have both vocalized and mobilized need for change.
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