President Trump didn’t mention the fifth anniversary of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Thursday — but he did have a controversial gun rights supporter over for eggnog.
Wayne LaPierre, the CEO of the National Rifle Association, attended a Christmas party at the White House on the day of the grim anniversary.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders confirmed to the Daily News on Saturday that LaPierre attended the holiday soiree but said she didn’t know if he and Trump talked at the event.
“I’m not aware of a conversation between them,” she said. “He was there for a Christmas party and not a formal meeting of any kind.”
Still, LaPierre’s invite to the party drew a strong rebuke from Nicole Hockley, whose son Dylan was one of 20 first-graders killed in the shooting at the Connecticut school on Dec. 14, 2012.
“Not only did (Trump) ignore the five-year remembrance completely — not even a single tweet — he slapped us all in the face by having none other than NRA President Wayne LaPierre at his White House Christmas party that night,” Hockley said in a statement to The News. “The appalling lack of humanity and decency has not gone unnoticed.”
LaPierre and the NRA have vociferously opposed stricter gun-control legislation, especially in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre, when madman Adam Lanza killed a total of 26 people at the school with a semi-automatic rifle.
A week after the tragedy, LaPierre gave a speech where he blamed violent video games and the media for mass shootings. He also said that school staff should be armed.
“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” he said at the time.
While Trump stayed silent about the anniversary, reporters peppered Sanders with questions on Thursday about what legislation the administration was pursuing to stop another Sandy Hook or the Oct. 1 mass shooting in Las Vegas.
Sanders angered gun control critics with her response — saying she didn’t know of regulations that could have prevented the shootings.
“Whether or not there’s a regulation that could have been put in place, or not, that could have prevented those things, frankly, I’m not aware of what that would be,” she said.
Hockley, who co-founded Sandy Hook Promises, a group that seeks to end gun violence, criticized Sanders for her ignorance on the issue.
She said there were several regulations — like the Extreme Risk Protections Order — that could prevent mass shootings. She also said people can be trained to recognize signs of a person who is at risk of hurting themselves or others.
Even simple steps of showing someone how to store a gun safely and responsibly can help prevent mass killings, she said.
“Trump, LaPierre and Sanders are all parents,” she said. “While they ignorantly partied and remained uninformed on an issue that kills thousands of Americans every year, I was crying myself to sleep. While they got the chance to kiss their children goodnight, I kissed the urn holding my beautiful boy’s ashes.”
