Meeting cancelled
US Vice-President Mike Pence was scheduled to meet with North Korean officials, including leader Kim Jong Un’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, while in South Korea for the Winter Olympics this month but the North Koreans cancelled at the last minute after Pence condemned North Korean human rights abuses and announced plans for new economic sanctions, US officials said yesterday.
As a grieving Florida community demanded action on guns, President Donald Trump yesterday directed the Justice Department to move to ban devices such as the rapid-fire bump stocks used in last year’s Las Vegas massacre. It was a small sign of movement on the gun violence issue that has long tied Washington in knots.
“We must do more to protect our children,” Trump said, adding that his Administration was working hard to respond to the shooting in Parkland that left 17 dead.
After past mass killings yielded little action on tighter gun controls, the White House is trying to demonstrate that it is taking the issue seriously. The President, a strong and vocal supporter of gun rights, has not endorsed more robust changes sought by gun control activists. But the White House cast the President in recent days as having been swayed by the school shooting in Florida and willing to listen to proposals.
In a tweet yesterday, Trump indicated he wants to strengthen the background check system, but offered no specifics.
Trump said: “Whether we are Republican or Democrat, we must now focus on strengthening Background Checks!” Asked at a press briefing if Trump was open to reinstating a ban on assault-type weapons, spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said White House officials “haven’t closed the door on any front”. She also said that the idea of raising the age limit to buy an AR-15 was “on the table for us to discuss”.
Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, a leading advocate for tighter gun controls, said Trump’s directive suggested the President was aware of fresh energy on the issue and called it a sign that “for the first time” politicians are “scared of the political consequences of inaction on guns”.
A bipartisan legislative effort to ban bump stocks last year fizzled out. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives announced in December that it was reviewing whether weapons using bump stocks should be considered illegal machine guns under federal law.
Under the Obama Administration, it had concluded that bump stocks did not violate federal law.
But the acting director of the bureau told lawmakers in December that it and the Justice Department would not have initiated the review if a ban “wasn’t a possibility at the end”.
The Justice Department had not made any announcement regarding its review when Trump yesterday signed a memorandum directing the agency to complete the review as soon as possible and propose a rule “banning all devices that turn legal weapons into machine guns”.
Reacting to Trump’s memo, the department said in a statement that it “understands this is a priority for the President and has acted quickly to move through the rulemaking process. We look forward to the results of that process as soon as it is duly completed.”
A day earlier, Trump sent another signal he had been swayed by the Parkland shooting and the dramatic calls for action in its aftermath. A White House statement said Trump was looking at a bill that would strengthen federal gun background checks.
Today Trump was to host parents, teachers and students at the White House for a “listening session” that was to include people impacted by mass shootings in Parkland, Columbine, Colorado and Newtown, Connecticut.
Among the steps sought by gun control advocates: closing loopholes that permit loose private sales on the internet and at gun shows, banning assault-type weapons and passing laws to enable family members, guardians or police to ask judges to strip gun rights temporarily from people who show warning signs of violence. — AP