Rick Santorum To Kids: Learn CPR, Shut Up About Gun Control

After tens of thousands of students participated in the March For Our Lives rally in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere across the country Saturday, former Pennsylvania senator and presidential candidate Rick Santorum had some interesting — and many said “clueless” and “stupid” — advice for them: Instead of asking “someone else to solve their problem” by rallying for stronger gun laws, they should learn CPR.

Santorum, a commentator for CNN, made his comments on the network’s “State of the Union” Sunday and was immediately skewered for suggesting, in effect, that students should shut up, accept that they may be shot and killed in their schools, and be prepared to help victims.

For their part, students don’t plan to back down. They began demanding stricter background checks and assault weapon and bump stock bans after the Feb. 14 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Seventeen students and staff were killed by a gunman armed with an AR-15 assault weapon.

“Today is the day that America will change, and it will be because of the young people in this country,” Parkland, Florida, shooting survivor Lauren Hogg tweeted about the marches Saturday. “I believe that my generation has found their voice and that is something that no one can ever change. Prepare yourself America, the kids are here and we’re tired of injustice.”

Santorum, a Republican, thinks the rallies and marches are wasted effort.

"How about kids instead of looking to someone else to solve their problem, do something about maybe taking CPR classes or trying to deal with situations that when there is a violent shooter that you can actually respond to that?” he said.

"They took action to ask someone to pass a law," Santorum said. "They didn't take action to say, 'How do I, as an individual, deal with this problem? How am I going to do something about stopping bullying within my own community? What am I going to do to actually help respond to a shooter?' ... Those are the kind of things where you can take it internally, and say, 'Here's how I'm going to deal with this. Here's how I'm going to help the situation,' instead of going and protesting and saying, 'Oh, someone else needs to pass a law to protect me.' "

Santorum later said he was “proud” of students for taking a stand, but said “everyone should be responsible and deal with the problems that we have to confront in our lives.”“And ignoring those problems and saying they're not going to come to me and saying some phony gun law is gonna solve it. Phony gun laws don't solve these problems."

David Hogg, one of the Parkland students who helped organize the marches Saturday and has become a spokesperson for the student movement, tweeted: “I think @RickSantorum might need to learn CPR for the NRA following midterms.”

Some of the best responses came from emergency room doctors and medical professionals whose job it is to patch up kids and others whose bodies have been riddled by bullets from assault weapons.

“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,” tweeted Dr. Eugene Gu, a surgeon-scientist and healthcare columnist for The Hill. “Rick Santorum telling kids to shut up and take CPR classes is simply unconscionable.”

In a tweet signed “Common Sense,” Jonny Loquasto pointed out the obvious: “As a healthcare professional who is certified in CPR, I can confirm that performing CPR can’t remove AR-15 bullets from a body. Get a clue.”

Clueless doesn’t begin to describe how off-point Santorum’s advice was, according to feminist, activist and author Laura Sessions tweeted.

“Santorum advice to do cpr WOULD BE DEADLY,” Sessions tweeted. “Army med said NEVER PERFORM cpr when there are bullet holes. I know the last thing I would want, with holes in my body is someone pushing MORE blood through my system. So stupid and one sec on the internet explains that!”

“Dear Rick Santorum,” California Congressman Ted Lieu tweeted. “CPR is good for heart stoppage. Not good for victims of multiple AR-15 bullets, which typically impart 3 times the lethal energy upon impact than a 9mm handgun bullet. AR-15 bullets obliterate organs and cause so much bleeding that victims die very quickly.”

Erica Lafferty, whose mother was killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012, issued a statement on behalf of Everytown for Gun Safety, where she is the program manager.

"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,” the statement read. “My mother was killed while protecting her students at Sandy Hook School. 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."

(File photo of Rick Santorum by Alex Wong/Getty Images)