Rick Santorum's suggestion was DOA.
Republicans are desperate in their attempts to silence young people who protest gun violence. But the kids just fight back twice as hard.
Former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) stepped in it on Sunday when he suggested that young people "learn CPR" rather than petition their government for stronger gun laws. On CNN's "New Day" on Monday morning, Parkland survivors Lauren and David Hogg reacted to tape of Santorum's remarks.
"I just think it's completely absurd that he's even thinking about teaching us CPR when we're having gun violence all across America and even in our schools," Lauren Hogg said. "The fact that he's saying CPR when my friends are dying on our floor, and nothing's being done about it, is just horrible. I think he's just using it as a distraction to get the attention away from guns."
Lauren's brother, David Hogg, then pointed out that kids are already learning to treat gunshot victims, but that, "At the end of the day, if you take a bullet from an AR-15 to the head, no amount of CPR is going to save you, because you're dead."
Santorum's remarks came in response to massive nationwide protests this weekend, and sparked immediate outrage.
Several other Parkland students called Santorum out as well.
Stop trying to tell us the best ways to fix things after they already happen. Fun fact: most teens know CPR already. It’s good for the babysitting business. (You trust us to watch your kids then, so why are you fighting us protecting your kids now?) https://t.co/A6F0mZIfo1
— Aly Sheehy🦅 (@Aly_Sheehy) March 26, 2018
Genius! I will just learn CPR, and gun violence in America will be resolved! Thanks @RickSantorum 🙂
— Sofie Whitney (@sofiewhitney) March 25, 2018
Erica Lafferty, whose mother Dawn was killed protecting students during the Sandy Hook massacre, said in a statement, "Rick Santorum's words are an insult to the kids of Parkland, my family and to the countless others who have had loved ones taken by gun violence."
"My mother was killed while protecting her students at Sandy Hook School," Lafferty continued. "For anyone to suggest that the solution to gun violence is for kids to learn CPR is outrageous, and indicative of the NRA’s desire to do or say anything except strengthen America’s weak gun laws."
Moms Demand Action founder Shannon Watts called Santorum out for his ties to the gun lobby. "Rick Santorum - who thinks we should reactively revive the dead instead of proactively passing data-proven, lifesaving gun laws - had an A+ rating from the @NRA and took hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from their lobbyists as a quid pro quo," Watts wrote on Twitter.
And a number of doctors also weighed in with more informed views than Santorum's.
As a surgeon, I’ve operated on gunshot victims who’ve had bullets tear through their intestines, cut through their spinal cord, and pulverize their kidneys and liver. Rick Santorum telling kids to shut up and take CPR classes is simply unconscionable.
— Eugene Gu, MD (@eugenegu) March 25, 2018
For 13 years I worked as a physician in a trauma center. If a gunshot victim is pulseless, his chance of survival approaches zero. Neither CPR, transfusions, nor surgery will save him.
But scientific facts matter little to smug rhetoric-spewers like Rick Santorum. https://t.co/HELejUTsZL
— American Dissent🇺🇸 (@keith_pochick) March 25, 2018
Santorum is not the first Republican to lash out desperately at these kids, and he won't be the last. But sooner, rather than later, Republicans will learn that fighting for the NRA no longer pays.
