Florida shooting a test for Trump on gun control
WASHINGTON – The businessman who once supported tighter gun control — and then opposed it after he became a presidential candidate — is now under pressure to switch back in favor of certain new firearms laws.
In the wake of last week’s mass shooting at a South Florida high school, President Donald Trump has White House meetings scheduled this week with groups of students and local officials about the prospects of tougher gun laws to protect schools.
The president expressed some support Monday for some changes to the gun background check system, by opening the door to a bipartisan congressional proposal designed to improve the sharing of mental health and criminal record information between state and local agencies and the federal background check database.
“While discussions are ongoing and revisions are being considered, the president is supportive of efforts to improve the federal background check system,” said White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
Trump himself did not comment on the gun issue Monday. His weekend at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, was dominated by a renewed gun debate after a student was charged with killing 17 people and injuring more than a dozen others at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
Sanders confirmed that Trump spoke Friday with Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, about a background check bill he has has introduced with Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn.
Murphy said Trump’s apparent support “is another sign the politics of gun violence are shifting rapidly.” In a tweet, the Connecticut senator said that “no one should pretend this bill alone is an adequate response to this epidemic.”
Yet is unclear how far Trump is willing to go on gun control — or if he’ll take any action at all.
During his weekend at Mar-a-Lago, Trump visited a local hospital to speak with people injured in the shooting and their families. Some of the students who survived the shooting blanketed cable television news programs – some watched by Trump – to press their case for more gun legislation.
During a Saturday rally, student and shooting survivor Emma Gonzalez went after the National Rifle Association by saying that “politicians who sit in their gilded House and Senate seats funded by the NRA telling us nothing could have been done to prevent this, we call B.S . ... They say tougher guns laws do not decrease gun violence. We call B.S.”
Previous mass shootings during Trump’s term have not led to legislative action, in part because Republicans who run Congress say they would be ineffective or infringe on Second Amendment gun rights.
In a 2000 book, published well before he ran for president, Trump said he generally opposed gun control but at that time did back a “ban on assault weapons” and “a slightly longer waiting period to purchase a gun.”
During his 2016 campaign, Trump became a champion of the Second Amendment and welcomed contributions from the National Rifle Association and other gun-rights groups.
Geraldo Rivera of Fox News, who spoke with Trump over the weekend, said he suggested the president back a law to deny the sale of certain weapons to anyone under the age of 21.