President Trump To Parkland Kids: 'We're Going To Get It Done'

WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Trump, Vice President Pence and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos heard from survivors of the Parkland school shooting on Wednesday as well as families of the 17 murdered students and faculty. The president promised action with respect to background checks and a new focus on mental health issues associated with gun violence in schools. The White House event marked the one-week anniversary of the Valentine's Day massacre in Parkland, Florida.

"We want to learn everything we can. Starting about two minutes after this meeting we’re going to work," Trump declared. "We don’t want others to go through the kind of pain that you’ve gone through. It wouldn’t be right."

Pence said that Wednesday's session was as much about the past 20 years since the massacre at Columbine High School as it was about last week's shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. The group included parents of students killed at Columbine in 1999 and also from the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting massacre in 2012.

"We want to hear your hearts today," Pence said at the outset of the meeting, promising that the administration would make school safety the administration's top priority. "I encourage you to be candid ... and share with us not only your personal experience, but what it is you would have us to do."

Many of the Stoneman Douglas students and families choked back tears as they addressed the president in a respectful manner.

Andrew Pollack whose daughter, Meadow, was murdered in Parkland couldn't understand why he can't get a bottle of water past airport security when a former Stoneman Douglas student was able to take an Uber to the tree-lined campus and begin a killing rampage with an AR-15 assault rifle.

"We protect airports. We protect concerts, stadiums," the grieving father said, noting that he paid a visit to the U.S. Department of Education in Washington on Wednesday before heading over to the White House. He was surprised to find a security guard in the elevator.

"How do you think that makes me feel," he asked? "It should have been one school shooting and we should have fixed it. And I’m pissed because my daughter — I’m not going to see again."

Julia Cordover told the president that she was one of the lucky ones who made it home that day and said she was confident Trump would do the right thing beginning with his promise to ban bump stocks.

"I survived. I was lucky enough to come home from school unlike some of my other classmates and teachers," she told the president.

Jonathan Blank said that the shooter fired into his classroom last week.

"It doesn’t even seem real still. Everything seems fake," he said. "You’ve done a great job and I like the direction that you are going to."

Trump promised the families and students that his administration would take action though he angered some observers when he sought opinions from participants on the possibility of arming some teachers.

"We’re going to get it done," he said of changes to make schools safer. "It’s not going to be talk like it was in the past."

President Donald Trump holds a listening session in the State Dining Room of the White House on Wednesday. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster).