Trump’s gun policy shifts yet again

President cites lack of ‘political support’ for law

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump’s decision to back off a proposal raising the minimum age to buy any gun from 18 to 21 – after initially voicing his support – shouldn’t come as a shock from someone prone to public zigzagging.

After all, Trump signaled support to key senators last fall for a bill to prop up the Affordable Care Act until he backtracked the next day.

And he told other senators in January that he was ready to back a bipartisan immigration bill until he reversed course within hours.

Then last week, he endorsed a faceto-face summit with Kim Jong Un after Trump had tweeted in October that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was “wasting his time” trying to negotiate with the North Korean dictator.

In a meeting with lawmakers two weeks ago, Trump said that “it doesn’t make sense that I have to wait until I’m 21 to get a handgun, but I can get this weapon at 18,” referring to the

AR-15-style assault weapon that alleged shooter Nikolas Cruz used to kill 17 and wound 15 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, on Valentine’s Day.

But when the White House unveiled its school safety plan Sunday night in reaction to the Parkland massacre, the only mention of the age proposal was that it would be one of 11 issues a commission headed by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos would study.

Trump tweeted that he’s “watching court cases and rulings” before proposing a universal age increase, but he said there’s “not much political support (to put it mildly).”

Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Monday that the president had not abandoned the idea of raising the gun-buying age but that the plan released Sunday reflects what the executive branch can achieve now.

“The president as you know doesn’t have the ability to just create federal law,” Sanders said. “So what he is pushing forward are things that can be immediately accomplished either through the administration or that have broad-based bipartisan support in Congress. But that doesn’t mean that he has wiped away some of those other things. We’re still looking at how best we can move forward.”

Gun control advocates said the reason for Trump’s retreat is obvious: He caved to the National Rifle Association.

“To no one’s surprise, the president’s words of support for stronger gun safety laws proved to be hollow,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who backs a ban on assault weapons, said Monday. “Responding to the murder of 17 students and educators by endorsing the gun lobby’s platform is a shameful abdication of the president’s responsibility to lead.”

At the same Feb. 28 meeting with lawmakers where he discussed raising the gun-buying age, Trump also alarmed gun-rights activists by suggesting he would confiscate guns from people who posed threats first and then “go through due process.”

But the plan he unveiled Sunday makes no mention of such confiscation. Instead, it directs the Justice Department “to provide technical assistance” to states interested in implementing extreme risk protection orders where courts would have to approve the removal of guns from someone the state considers a safety risk.

Michael A. Cohen, a Trump critic who has accused the president of having “no core principles,” said he’s not surprised by the constant shifts.

“Quite simply, there is no rock bottom for Trump to hit in which he realizes the error of his ways and shifts course,” Cohen, the author of “American Maelstrom: The 1968 Election and the Politics of Division,” wrote in a recent column for The Boston Globe.