Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) revealed Friday that he is working on a plan to help employ veterans of the U.S. Military to stop shootings from happening at schools across the country.
The statement from Graham comes after 21 people, including 19 children, lost their lives in a shooting last week at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, after an 18-year-old Hispanic male opened fire inside the school. The Daily Wire is not naming the shooter due to company policy about not giving notoriety to mass shooters.
“We have hundreds of thousands of well-trained former military members who could bring a lot to the table in terms of school security,” Graham wrote on Twitter. “ROTC instructors with firearms training should be allowed to possess weapons to enhance school security.”
“I will be working to create a certification process that allows former military members to go through school security training and become available to school districts throughout the country,” Graham continued. “It is time to mobilize our retired and former service members who are willing to help secure our schools. Our schools are soft targets. They contain our most valuable possession – our children, the future of our country – and must be protected. ”
Graham concluded by saying that schools should be “treated like courthouses, banks, capital buildings, etc when it comes to security.”
In the wake of the shooting, Democratic lawmakers and the president of the United States have ramped up calls for imposing new gun control measures.
The Daily Wire reported that Biden called for banning semi-automatic long guns, which are extremely popular in the United States, banning what he claimed were “high-capacity magazines,” enacting red flag laws that strip Americans of due process, and going after gun manufacturers.
“We need to ban assault weapons and high capacity magazines,” Biden said. “And if we can’t ban assault weapons, then we should raise the age to purchase them from 18 to 21, strengthen the background checks.”
Graham responded to President Joe Biden’s gun control speech this week by saying that he was “ready to vote on all the proposals mentioned by President Biden tonight and encourage the Democratic Leader to bring them forward for votes.”
Graham, who is an AR-15 owner, then suggested that he would vote no on those proposals, writing, “I also stand ready to work across the aisle to find common ground – something that was absent from President Biden’s address to the nation.”
Graham has also engaged in talks with Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) to work on legislation for a so-called red flag law, which are viewed by many as controversial or unconstitutional.