SC’s Mark Sanford meets with students from Florida school shooting

South Carolina Congressman Mark Sanford has met with students from the Florida high school where 17 were killed in a Feb. 14 shooting.

Sanford, R-Charleston, was one of a handful of members of Congress to meet with students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School when the students visited Capitol Hill on Tuesday.

“Their pleas were heartfelt, and we had a most constructive conversation,” Sanford said of the meeting in a Facebook post.

The students from Stoneman Douglas have been vocal in calling for changes to the nation’s gun laws in the aftermath of the attack that killed many of their classmates. South Carolina high school students held their own demonstration calling for change at South Carolina’s State House on Tuesday.

The shooting in a Parkland, Florida, high school continues to fuel conversation about the nation’s gun laws on Capitol Hill. In the same post, Sanford references a lengthy conversation he had Monday evening with a different unidentified “group.”

“For two and a half hours over dinner, I met with a group to discuss the gun issue at length, and visits like these continue to be helpful in my thinking on the gun issue.”

However, the students’ meeting with federal lawmakers on Tuesday did not have a high turnout, Sanford said.

“To my surprise, there were but nine of us that met with them,” Sanford writes. “I had expected many more Members of Congress to come by the meeting.”

Sanford spoke about some changes to gun laws at a Beaufort County event on Monday, when he said many educators have told him they don’t support proposals to arm teachers in the classroom in response to the Florida classroom.

The congressman did say he supports improved background checks and extending the current three-day waiting period for a federal background check.

This story was originally published February 27, 2018 at 7:29 PM with the headline "SC’s Mark Sanford meets with students from Florida school shooting."