In the immediate aftermath of last week’s deadly school shooting in Minnesota, leading White House officials tried to shift the focus away from guns and onto antidepressants. The effort was absurd for a variety of reasons, and not surprisingly, it didn’t exactly catch on as part of the larger public conversation.

That was last week. This week, Donald Trump shared some thoughts of his own.

At an unrelated event in the Oval Office, a reporter asked the president whether he was prepared to send “an armed National Guardsman to every school” in the country. Trump didn’t answer the question directly, though he did say, “We have a big problem with school shootings, but we also have thousands and thousands of schools that run perfectly.”

This was a flawed pitch. In the wake of shootings in which children are victims, no one wants to hear an elected leader effectively say, “But look at all the schools where no one was shot.”

But as the Q&A progressed, the Republican added some related thoughts about an idea he just can’t shake. CBS News reported:

President Trump shared his thoughts on arming some schoolteachers, following a mass shooting at a Minneapolis church. While speaking at the White House Tuesday, the president told reporters he has reservations on how to build more secure schools. However, Trump said he does like the idea of arming certain teachers.

“I’ve thrown out the concept, we have great teachers that love our children. The parents love their children, the teacher love the children, too,” he said. “If you took a small percentage of those teachers that were in the military, that were distinguished in the military, were in the National Guard, etc., and you let them carry. That’s something a lot of people like. I sort of liked it.

“It would have to be studied. But they’ve trained, they know about weapons. You can’t do it with every teacher because most teachers don’t know. But I always thought that would be an alternative.”

The president did not appear to be kidding.

If this sounds at all familiar, it’s not your imagination. Seven years ago, after a mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, Trump advocated for arming teachers, coaches and principals, adding that this “could very well solve your problem.”

As I noted in my first book (see chapter 8), the president was quite serious about this, insisting that “20% of teachers” are “adept” with firearms (a number he apparently made up) and would therefore be prepared to engage gunmen and neutralize them in the event of a school shooting.

The Republican added online, “ATTACKS WOULD END! … Problem solved.”

There was no real follow-through on the proposal because it was simply too ridiculous to be sustained. Nevertheless, seven years later, Trump apparently hasn’t let it go.

This post updates our related earlier coverage.