IN WRITING BOOK IN 2000, TRUMP BACKED EFFORT TO BAN ASSAULT WEAPONS
“Whether we are Republican or Democrat, we must now focus on strengthening Background Checks!”
But Trump’s foray into policy talks is being met with skepticism based on his track record, his fluid stances on gun control and his close relationship with the National Rifle Association. He backed an assault weapons ban and a longer waiting period for gun purchases in 2000, writing about it in one of his books, and then reversed that stance when he built a presidential campaign on an absolutist pro-gun interpretation of the Second Amendment.
Trump’s idea to ban bump stocks is not a new one. After the Las Vegas mass shooting in October, he signaled a willingness to discuss regulating or banning the kits that allow people — like the shooter in that case — to make their legal semi-automatic rifles operate like illegal, rapid-fire automatic weapons. The administration later clarified that any crackdown should be regulatory, not statutory. That stance is shared by the NRA, which opposes any new gun control laws.
The result is that nothing happened, and the country moved on. Thus did the reaction to the Las Vegas massacre, the nation’s worst mass murder in modern times, follow a familiar pattern of years of gun control debates: Gun rights advocates stalled serious policy discussion after the tragedy by saying it was too soon to think of anything but the victims, yet as time passed, so did the impetus for action.
“They’ll give a generic comment on how the president supports changes,” said Corey Ciorciari, director of policy at the progressive organization Democracy Forward, speaking of White House aides. “And that allows them to avoid scrutiny while people are talking about it. And then after people move on, you never hear another thing about it.”
For a long time before his 2016 campaign, Trump branded himself as a nonpartisan moderate on the issue of gun control. In 2000, he wrote that he generally opposed gun control but that he was OK with certain restrictions, and he attacked Republicans for their pro-nra rigidity.
“The Republicans walk the NRA line and refuse even limited restrictions,” he wrote in his book “The America We Deserve.” “I generally oppose gun control, but I support the ban on assault weapons and I also support a slightly longer waiting period to purchase a gun.”
Trump held that point of view until he began gearing up for his run for the presidency. As social conservatives flocked to his rallies, he turned increasingly hardline in opposing any limitations on gun ownership.
In the White House, he has acted in keeping with that posture. His appointees have chipped away at the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, the federal system that stores consult to make sure buyers are eligible to purchase guns.
The administration officials narrowed a few legal definitions to make it harder to classify would-be gun buyers as ineligible. The FBI used to consider people “fugitives from justice” if there were outstanding warrants for their arrest, but now they must also have fled across state lines to intentionally avoid prosecution to be disqualified. Trump officials also purged tens of thousands of law enforcement records from the background system.
They narrowed the definition of mentally ill. And Congress and Trump rolled back an Obamaera regulation that required the Social Security Administration to send records of people receiving benefits for mental illness for inclusion in the background check system. In his recently released budget for the coming fiscal year, Trump proposed slashing millions of dollars from the budget for the background check system.
After the lone gunman opened fire Oct. 1 on a concert crowd in Las Vegas, the president appeared to waver for a moment in his view against gun controls. The gunman had attached bump stocks to his semiautomatic firearms, thereby turning them into machine guns that killed 58 people and injured hundreds more, and Trump hinted to reporters that he might support a proposed ban.
“We’ll be looking at that in the next short period of time,” he said.
The public moved on, though, and so did the conversation. Trump did not prod Congress to act.
After the Parkland shooting, Trump once again is signaling that he is thinking over the situation. Two days after the massacre, which coincided with Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s Day, he and First Lady Melania Trump visited the hospital trauma center where many of the victims and the suspect were treated. A doctor told The New York Times that he observed a parent of one of the wounded teenagers urging Trump to make sure this kind of tragedy never unfolded again.
“We’re going to work on it,” the president told the parent, according to the doctor.
It is not clear that the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has legal authority to ban bump stocks by regulation. In the past, the ATF has said it did not, meaning that gun manufacturers could challenge any new regulations.
The president spent a quiet weekend not far from Parkland, at his Mar-a-lago home, reportedly talking with friends about how to deal with the epidemic of mass shootings — and watching the surviving teens advocating on cable networks for gun controls. On Monday, a spokesperson issued a statement indicating that Trump had spoken with Cornyn.
Discussions on legislation were underway, the statement said, adding that the president was “supportive of efforts to improve the federal background check system.”