Dems blame Trump, NRA for inaction on guns

Presidential candidates point to broad national support for legislation

DES MOINES, Iowa — Democratic presidential candidates on Saturday placed responsibility for inaction on gun violence in the hands of President Donald Trump and the National Rifle Association, in the face of broad national support for some gun control measures.

“If most Americans insist that something be done and it doesn’t happen, it means we need fundamental reform,” Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, said at a presidential forum on gun violence in downtown Des Moines.

The forum comes a week after a pair of mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, shook the nation and reignited a debate surrounding gun rights in America. Seventeen candidates were due to speak and answer questions from members of the gun control group Moms Demand Action in the crowd, some of whom teared up while describing the ways gun violence had affected their families.

New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, in response to a question on how to avoid stigmatizing mental illness when the president has repeatedly highlighted that issue in response to mass shootings, called Trump a liar. Most people with a mental illness are not violent.

“It’s just President Trump lying to the American people again, being inauthentic about what the problem is … trying to distract, and trying not to take responsibility for what is happening in this nation,” she said.

California Sen. Kamala Harris also put the blame on Trump’s shoulders, saying that the president “didn’t pull the trigger, but he’s tweeting out the ammunition.”

“If he said hey, Mitch McConnell, bring that House bill over here, …it would happen,” she said.

“There’s a tipping point that’s been reached. I feel it out there,” Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar said.