The US should prioritize school safety funding rather than aid to Ukraine, said former President Donald Trump days after the killing of 19 Texas students.
If the US can send billions to Ukraine, “we should be able to do anything to keep our children safe at home”, he said at a pro-gun conference.
The meeting of the National Rifle Association (NRA), America’s largest group, continues in Houston.
Three days later a teenager was shot dead in Uvalde.
“We have spent billions in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have not found anything,” Mr Trump said in a speech on Friday, applauding.
“Before we can build the whole world, we must build safe schools for our children in our nation.”
Earlier this month, the US Congress voted strongly to send about $ 40bn (£ 31bn) of military aid to Ukraine. In total, American lawmakers have sent an estimated $ 54bn to Ukraine since Russia’s attack in February.
Mr Trump has rejected calls to tighten gun control, saying respectable Americans should be allowed guns to protect themselves from “evil”.
Instead he proposed a “floor-to-floor renovation” for school security, with reinforced access points that included metal checkpoints and at least one armed police officer on all campuses. He accused Democrats of stoning such security measures.
The former president of the Republic began his discourse by reading the names of the victims shot in Uvalde, each in metal form.
The annual NRA conference, with five million members, took place 280 miles (450 km) from Uvalde, the site of the worst school shooting incident in the US in a decade.
Ahead of the event, several lawmakers and musicians announced their resignation – including Texas Governor Greg Abbott, Senator John Cornyn and the manufacturer of the gun used in the Uvalde attack.