Sanders: Trump will still support NRA

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump reassured the National Rifle Association in a Thursday evening meeting of his support for Second Amendment gun rights but stuck by his proposal to set a minimum federal age of 21 to buy long guns, his press secretary said on Friday.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders also indicated that Trump does not support universal background checks for gun buyers, which would expand to include sales at gun shows and over the internet that are currently exempt. The president wants to improve the current system but is “not necessarily” in favor of background checks for all gun purchases, she said.

Trump’s Oval Office meeting with NRA lobbyist Chris Cox, which was not listed on his public schedule, came a day after he’d rattled his allies among gun rights groups by telling lawmakers to send him a bill with a number of limits on gun ownership, including the age limit to buy assault weapons like the one used last month in the mass shooting at a Parkland, Fla., high school and several others.

Trump supports a bipartisan Senate bill that would make more modest changes to the federal background check system, to better ensure that state, local and federal agencies send incriminating information on individuals to the database used to check gun store purchases, Sanders said. As for other gun controls, she said, “we’ll see what the legislation looks like.”