When President Donald Trump took the stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Friday morning, he clearly wanted to have some fun. 
 
 “You don’t mind if I go off script a little bit?” he asked the rowdy audience in Maryland. His prepared CPAC speech, after all, was “a little boring,” he said. 
 
 For more than an hour, Trump held court, largely eschewing a teleprompter filled with prepared remarks on North Korea sanctions and remembrances for Billy Graham and the victims of the Parkland, Fla. shooting, instead choosing to ramble enthusiastically about familiar themes in his typical campaign style. (In fact, new sanctions on North Korea were supposed to be a major part of his CPAC speech, with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin scheduled to give a briefing on the news Friday morning. But Trump barely mentioned them, giving them just a brief nod at the tail end of nearly one hour and 15 minutes onstage.) 
 
 Early in his CPAC speech, Trump caught a glimpse of himself in a TV monitor and joked, “I try like hell to hide the bald spot,” turning around to show the audience the back of his head. He said his “administration has had the most successful first year in the history of the presidency,” touting the passage of the tax bill, confirmation of a record-number of circuit court judges and moving the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem as some primary accomplishments. 
 
 And he returned to his election victory in 2016, criticizing the media and saying winning the electoral college is “much tougher” than winning the popular vote. (He did not win the popular vote.) The CPAC crowd started a robust chant of “lock her up!” when Trump mentioned Democrat Hillary Clinton, to which Trump responded that the Clintons have “committed a lot of atrocities.” 
 
 In another callback to his time on the campaign trail, Trump read the lyrics to Johnny Rivers’ “The Snake,” a song from the 1960s that tells of a woman taking in an injured snake, who then bites her, chiding her, “You knew damn well I was a snake before you took me in.” He would often read it at campaign events talking about crimes committed by immigrants. 
 
 As Trump pulled the printed lyrics out of his pocket Friday morning, he instructed his audience explicitly, “You have to think of this in terms of immigration.” 
 
 During the off-script portion of his hour on the CPAC stage, Trump also tried to motivate the crowd for the November midterm elections – saying that if Democrats win, “they’ll take away your Second Amendment.” He asked the crowd to cheer for whether they’d rather have the Second Amendment right to bear arms or the tax cuts he passed last year, and the applause signaled a win for the Second Amendment. He didn’t mention the shooting in Florida that took the lives of 17 people until later in his CPAC speech, when he temporarily returned to prepared remarks. 
 
 Friday morning gave Trump the opportunity to flex his freewheeling campaign rhetoric in front of a supportive live audience. It’s what he seems to enjoy the most about his late-in-life career switch to politics, and it’s what he gets far less of as Commander-in-Chief than he did as an outsider candidate. 
 
 He seemed excited to talk about upcoming midterm elections, asking Republicans not to get “complacent” during the midterms. And looking ahead to winning a second term in 2020, Trump said, “Hopefully we’re going to do that very easily.” ||||| ‘It is the gun, it’s the person behind the gun and it’s about helping people before they ever reach that point,’ said a mother whose son died at Sandy Hook elementary 
 
 Donald Trump has said he will consider a proposal to arm school teachers in an attempt to prevent mass shootings, a move certain to prove fiercely divisive. 
 
 The US president, holding a listening session at the White House with survivors of last week’s Florida school shooting and others affected by gun violence, claimed that allowing airline pilots to carry and conceal guns had demonstrated the measure could be a success. 
 
 “It only works when you have people very adept at using firearms, of which you have many,” Trump said during an emotionally searing session on Wednesday that, extraordinarily, was broadcast live on national television. “It would be teachers and coaches.” 
 
 Referring to Aaron Feis, a football coach who used his body as a shield to protect a student during the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school in Parkland, the president continued: “If the coach had a firearm in his locker when he ran at this guy – that coach was very brave, saved a lot of lives, I suspect. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest Julia Cordover, the student body president at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School wipes away tears during a listening session hosted by Donald Trump at the White House. Photograph: Xinhua / Barcroft Images 
 
 “But if he had a firearm, he wouldn’t have had to run, he would have shot him, and that would have been the end of it. This would only obviously be for people who are very adept at handling a gun. It’s called concealed carry, where a teacher would have a concealed gun on them. They’d go for special training and they would be there and you would no longer have a gun-free zone. Gun-free zone to a maniac, because they’re all cowards, a gun-free zone is: ‘Let’s go in and let’s attack, because bullets aren’t coming back at us’.” 
 
 Trump added: “An attack has lasted, on average, about three minutes. It takes five to eight minutes for responders, for the police to come in, so the attack is over. If you had a teacher who was adept at firearms, they could very well end the attack very quickly.” 
 
 Play Video 1:15 Trump says arming teachers with concealed weapons could prevent school massacres – video 
 
 Knowledge of this would act as a deterrent to a would-be attacker, Trump claimed. “You know, a lot of people don’t understand that airline pilots now, a lot of them carry guns, and I have to say that things have changed a lot. People aren’t attacking the way they would routinely attack and maybe you would have the same situation in schools.” 
 
 The president asked for a show of hands in the room over the proposal: some were in favour, others were against. “We can understand both sides and certainly it’s controversial,” he acknowledged, promising to discuss it seriously. 
 
 
 
 It emerged after the shooting at Parkland that there was an armed security guard on site but he did not get the chance to engage the gunman, Nikolas Cruz, on the sprawling campus. In May 2016, during the presidential election, Trump tweeted: “Crooked Hillary [Clinton] said that I want guns brought into the school classroom. Wrong!” 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest Donald Trump with notes during a listening session with high school students and teachers at the White House on Wednesday. Photograph: Carolyn Kaster/AP 
 
 Nicole Hockley, whose six-year-old son Dylan died at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, spoke out against the idea of arming teachers. “It’s not personally something that I support. Rather than arming them with a firearm, I would rather arm them with the knowledge of how to prevent these acts from happening in the first place,” she told Trump. 
 
 Safety assessments programmes and interventions for troubled children are vital, she added. “Let’s talk about prevention. There is so much that we can do to help people before it reaches that point, and I urge you please stay focused on that as well. It is the gun, it’s the person behind the gun and it’s about helping people before they ever reach that point.” 
 
 Earlier during the session in the state dining room, where some speakers were tearful but composed as they recalled their experiences, Hockley also issued a challenge to the president. “This is not difficult,” she told him. “These deaths are preventable. And I implore you: consider your own children. You don’t want to be me. No parent does.” 
 
 During the meeting Trump also asserted that he would be “very strong” on background checks for gun buyers as well as mental health issues. He sat in the middle of a semi-circle listening intently as six survivors of last week’s shooting and bereaved parents from Parkland, Columbine, and Sandy Hook took turns to address him. 
 
 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) Crooked Hillary said that I want guns brought into the school classroom. Wrong! 
 
 Sam Zeif, 18, a Parkland student whose text messages with his brother during last week’s shooting went viral, fought back tears as he told Trump: “I turned 18 the day after. Woke up to the news that my best friend was gone. I don’t understand why I can still go in a store and buy a weapon of war, an AR. I was reading today that a person 20 years old walked into a store and bought an AR-15 in five minutes with an expired ID. How is it that easy to buy this type of weapon? How are we not stopping this after Columbine, after Sandy Hook, sitting with a mother that lost her son? It’s still happening.” 
 
 Andrew Pollack, whose 18-year-old daughter Meadow was killed at Stoneman Douglas, reflected the candid anger of many when he took the microphone. “We’re here because my daughter has no voice – she was murdered last week, shot nine times,” he said. “How many schools, how many children have to get shot? It stops here, with this administration and me.” 
 
 Pollack, his voice rising with raw emotion, added: “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.” ||||| President Trump Donald John TrumpWhite House revises statement saying Iran 'has' secret nuclear weapons program DOJ files charges against 11 suspected 'caravan' members for illegal border crossing Mueller planned to ask Trump about Manafort's campaign outreach to Moscow: report MORE told the Conservative Political Action Committee on Friday that if Democrats come into power, they will “take away your Second Amendment.” 
 
 “They'll take away your Second Amendment,” Trump said. “Remember that.” 
 
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 Speaking a little more than a week after the shooting at a Florida high school that left 17 dead one day after he offered support for modest gun control proposals, Trump offered some red meat for the conservative crowd and vowed to protect gun rights. 
 
 Cheered on by the crowd, Trump told the audience that they must come out in force to beat history and prevent the GOP from losing congressional seats in this fall's midterms to Democrats. The president's party typically loses seats in a midterm election. 
 
 "Don't be complacent,” Trump said. “If they get in, they will repeal your tax cuts, they will put judges in that you wouldn't believe, they'll take away your Second Amendment, which we will never allow to happen.” 
 
 
 
 Trump broke from the script to ask the crowd which one they would prefer to keep: tax cuts or gun rights. The crowd exploded with cheers about protecting their gun rights. 
 
 
 
 Trump is walking a fine line with conservatives and the National Rifle Association (NRA), one of his biggest backers during his presidential campaign. 
 
 The president is advocating for several new policies that put him at odds with the NRA, including expanded background checks, higher age restrictions on gun purchases and banning a device, known as a bump stock, that enables semi-automatic rifles to fire more rapidly. 
 
 
 
 But the president said he’s been in contact with the NRA and that they’ll get on board with some of his proposals. 
 
 
 
 “I can speak for all of the senators and congressmen and congresswomen, all the people in this room that are involved in this decision, that we will act, we will do something,” Trump said. “We will act.” 
 
 
 
 Democrats are eager to achieve broader gun control measures and say Trump’s proposals do not go far enough. 
 
 
 
 The president is also proposing arming some school officials so they can fight back against active shooters, which many gun control activists oppose. 
 
 
 
 “Why do we protect our airports and our banks, our government buildings, but not our schools?,” Trump said. “It is time to make our schools a much harder target for attackers. We don't want them in our schools. We don't want them. When we declare our schools to be gun free zones, it just puts our students in far more danger.” 
 
 
 
 The national debate over gun control has exploded over the last week following the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. 
 
 Students across the nation have staged walkouts, participated in town hall events and organized protests to demand action be taken on gun control. 
 
 
 
 The president met with families of victims and survivors of the shooting at the White House this week and has said the emotional testimony he heard from them has moved him to act. 
 
 
 
 “There are not enough tears in the world to express our sadness and anguish for her family, and for every family that has lost a precious loved one,” Trump said. “No family should ever save and ever have to go in and suffer the way these families have suffered. They have suffered beyond anything that I have ever witnessed.”
– “You don’t mind if I go off script a little bit?” President Trump asked the audience Friday at the Conservative Political Action Conference. Time reports the president, admitting his prepared remarks were "a little boring," mostly ignored the teleprompter (including a segment on new North Korean sanctions) during his nearly 75-minute speech. For Trump, going off script mostly meant getting back to some of his favorite rally topics: the size of his election victory, having "the most successful first year in the history of the presidency," and "atrocities" committed by the Clintons (complete with chants of "lock her up"). The president warned of the danger and treachery of immigrants, reciting The Snake by Al Wilson. Trump regularly recited lyrics from the 1960s song during his campaign. It culminates with the line, "You knew damn well I was a snake before you took me in." Trump also addressed the topic of the moment: guns. "When we declare our schools to be gun-free zones it just puts our students in more danger, far more danger—well-trained gun-adept teachers and coaches should be able to carry concealed firearms," Politico quotes Trump as saying. Repeating his call to arm teachers, he added: “A teacher would have shot the hell out of [the Parkland shooter] before he knew what happened." Trump tried to fire up the audience for the 2018 midterms, warning them not to get complacent and allow Democrats to take control of Congress, the Hill reports. “If they get in, they will repeal your tax cuts, they will put judges in that you wouldn't believe, they'll take away your Second Amendment, which we will never allow to happen.”