Two people were killed and five others were wounded in a mass shooting at Florida State University on Thursday—an attack that President Donald Trump appeared to downplay during remarks in the Oval Office, while later recommitting to defending the Second Amendment.
“It’s a shame. Horrible thing. Horrible thing. Things like this take place. And we’ll have more to say about it later,” Trump told reporters, while the mass shooting was still in progress and the death toll was not yet known. “In the meantime, it’s an honor to have the Prime Minister of Italy with us.”
Later in the Oval Office, Trump, informed of the death toll, said: “Look, I’m a big advocate of the Second Amendment, I have been from the beginning. I protected it, and these things are terrible, but the gun doesn’t do the shooting, the people do,” according to CNN.
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“As far as legislation is concerned, this has been going on for a long time. I have an obligation to protect the Second Amendment, I ran on the Second Amendment, among many other things, and I will always protect the Second Amendment,” he added.
After he was shot on the campaign trail in July, when a bullet grazed his ear, Trump said he had God on his side as he spoke at length about the event.
“I took a bullet for democracy,” Trump repeatedly declared.
“I’m not supposed to be here tonight. Not supposed to be here,” he told Republican National Convention attendees, speaking for ten minutes about the attack. “I stand before you in this arena only by the grace of Almighty God.”
“Let me begin this evening by expressing my gratitude to the American people for your outpouring of love and support following the assassination attempt at my rally on Saturday. As you already know, the assassin’s bullet came within a quarter of an inch of taking my life.”
“I immediately knew it was very serious, that we were under attack,” he said. “I was very brave.”
Critics on Thursday blasted what some called the President’s lack of empathy, while others noted when he survived an assassination attempt, he talked about it for months.
“Oh cool just the President reacting to a mass shooting on an American college campus like he got the wrong order at the Chic-Fil-A drive-thru,” mocked Josh Tyler, the publisher of a popular entertainment, science, and technology website.
“When he’s shot at it wasn’t ‘things like this take place’,” wrote one user on the X social media platform, “his life is no more valuable then the thousands of students who attend fsu this is a disgraceful answer.”
“Thank goodness they only shot up a bunch of college kids and no Teslas were hurt,” snarked The Lincoln Project’s Jeff Timmer, mocking the Trump administration’s use of the Department of Justice to protect the electric vehicle’s dealerships.
“Things like this DON’T just take place,” noted U.S. Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-CA). “No student—from elementary school to college—should fear for their lives while receiving an education. My heart is with the FSU family today. We must end America’s gun violence epidemic.”
“Devoid of empathy,” wrote Rusty Reuff, a former Obama appointee to the Advisory Committee for the Arts for The Kennedy Center, “but yet they hold him up as their role model.”
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“Donald Trump will only put his fist up in the air and fight if it’s him that gets shot, not you or your kids,” wrote anti-gun violence activist Jackie Corin, a survivor of the 2018 Stoneman Douglas High School shooting and a March for Our Lives co-founder.
Everytown, America’s largest gun violence prevention organization, wrote: “This is the 81st mass shooting of 2025 and the 18th shooting on a college campus in 2025. It’s not a coincidence that we have a gun homicide rate 26x that of peer nations, or that guns are the leading cause of death for kids in America—it’s a policy failure.”
“Gun violence doesn’t just happen,” Everytown added. “It’s the result of cowardly politicians bought by the gun lobby—like Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis—repeatedly failing us while the gun industry profits.”
“What a fraud,” exclaimed attorney Paula Chertok. “Trump declares ’emergency’ almost daily to do whatever he wants—abuse power, gut the constitution, even lie we’re at war & have been invaded—all on the pretext of keeping Americans ‘safe.’ Yet does worse than nothing for actual safety from America’s #1 killer: GUNS!”
Another X user observed: “An immigrant commits a violent action, Trump builds an entire campaign around assuring it never happens again. Mass shootings occur a few times a year killing/injuring many and terrorizing thousands now scarred for life. Trump shrugs, ‘s— happens’.”
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