Photo: Alamy
President Donald Trump responded to the mass shooting at Florida State University on Thursday, calling it a “horrible thing.”
The president addressed the tragedy with reporters at the White House shortly after the shooting in Tallahassee that killed two and injured several others.
“Look, I’m a big advocate of the Second Amendment. I have been from the beginning. I’ve protected it, and these things are terrible,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
“But the gun doesn’t do the shooting, the people do,” Trump continued. “It’s, you know, a phrase that’s used probably too often. I will tell you that it’s a shame. I’m just hearing about it now.”
Details are continuing in the investigation that took the lives of two unidentified students. The suspected shooter is reportedly the son of a Leon County Sheriff’s Office deputy.
The suspect was identified as 20-year-old Phoenix Ikne, a student at the university. He remains hospitalized “with serious but non-life-threatening injuries,” Chief Lawrence Revell said in a statement.
Ikner used the personal handgun of his mother, law enforcement said in a briefing following the shooting.
“Unfortunately, her son had access to one of her of the weapons that was found at the scene. And we are continuing that investigation into how that weapon was used and what other weapons perhaps, he may have had access to,” Leon County Sheriff Walter McNeil said.
“The alleged shooter was also a long standing member of the Leon County Sheriff’s Office Citizen Advisory or Youth Advisory Council, so he has been steeped in the Leon County Sheriff’s Office family, engaged in a number of training programs that we have. So it’s not a surprise to us that he had access to weapons,” McNeil added.
The sheriff said Ikner acted alone and appeared to fire randomly on campus. The suspect was shot by an officer after he refused to put down his weapon.
Five people were being treated at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital.
The university canceled all classes and events through Friday and suspended home athletic events through Sunday.
