Survivors of Florida school shooting plan march on Washington to demand gun control

Young survivors of last week’s Florida school shooting say they will march on Washington next month to demand action on gun control.

On Sunday they spoke out angrily against President Donald Trump as he tried to blame Democrats for failing to pass legislation when Barack Obama was in power and rebuked the FBI for failing to act on warnings that Nikolas Cruz was a danger.

Cruz faces 17 counts of premeditated murder after being arrested in the wake of the deadly shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, near Fort Lauderdale.

Students said they will make Wednesday's shooting a turning point in America’s gun debate.

Survivors appeared on Sunday morning political talk shows where they announced their March for Our Lives campaign.

Emma Gonzalez named Mr Trump and Marco Rubio, the Florida senator, demanding they think again about their alliance with the National Rifle Association.

"Now is the time to get on the right side of this, because this is not something that we are going to let sweep under the carpet," she said on NBC’s Meet the Press.

The students have promised to become the face of a national movement for stricter gun control. They plan to travel to the state capitol in Tallahassee this week and are organising anti-gun violence demonstrations in Washington and other cities March 24.

Several condemned Mr Trump after he said on Saturday that the FBI may have been too distracted by the Russia investigation to follow up tip-offs that may have prevented the slaughter. He repeated his comments on Sunday despite the outrage.

"You're supposed to bring this nation together, not divide us," David Hogg, an 18-year-old Douglas senior, told NBC. "How dare you!"

The FBI has admitted it failed to act on a warning that Cruz owned a gun and had threatened to kill.

The students' outrage over Mr Trump's comments came a day after hundreds of gun control advocates rallied at the Broward County federal courthouse with students who survived the attack, parents and community leaders to demand a ban on the sale of assault weapons in the state.