Winnipeg Jets captain Blake Wheeler scared to put children in American schools

“I have three kids now. You start to get scared about thinking of them going to school in the United States,” Wheeler said Thursday (via WinnipegSun.com). "It shouldn’t be that way. My wife and I talked about this last night, actually. And we agree that the gun laws in Canada seem to prevent a lot of this from going on. And if there are steps to be taken to prevent this from happening in the future in the United States, why wouldn’t you explore that?

“Yeah, that’s a real thing. Louie (his son) is going to be in kindergarten next year. And you can’t help but think along those lines.”

Earlier this week, Wheeler tweeted at President Donald Trump insisting he stop letting down kids after he met with high school students and teachers at the White House.

Wheeler, a Minnesota native, expounded on his views toward gun control Thursday.

“Regardless of where people stand, we can probably all agree that what’s been going on in the U.S., the amount of school shootings — we’ve got to find a way to remedy that,” he said. “Times are different now than when the constitution was written. Abolishing guns from the world is not happening, not possible. But if there’s a way to make our schools safer, make our kids safer — there seems to have been steps taken around the world. Different countries have had success doing it.

“The United States is a little bit behind on that.”

Wheeler’s tone is a bit different than that of Chicago Cubs star Anthony Rizzo, who attended Stoneman Douglas and gave a speech at an on-campus vigil the day after the tragedy.

After his speech, Rizzo made sure to clarify he doesn’t want to make the shootings in Parkland into a political matter.

“To be very clear, I did not say the word ‘gun’ one time in my message,” Rizzo said Monday (via ESPN.com). “So anyone out there who wrote ‘gun control,’ saying I called for ‘gun control,’ I think, is very irresponsible. I did not say that once.