DON BUDGES ON GUN DEADLOCK
Signals a shift on background checks
The White House said Monday that President Trump — a staunch National Rifle Association supporter — might consider tougher background checks for gun buyers.
After last week’s school shooting in Florida left 14 students and three staffers dead, Trump spoke with Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas, below left) about a bill he sponsored with Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn., below right) that would “improve federal compliance with criminal background check legislation,” spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said.
“While discussions are ongoing and revisions are being considered, the president is supportive of efforts to improve the federal background check system,” she said.
Murphy — a leader in the fight for tougher gun laws since Adam Lanza shot and killed 20 children and six educators in Newtown, Conn., in 2012 — welcomed the news. But he cautioned that the bill alone would not stop gun violence.
“Interesting morning. Two quick thoughts: 1/ Trump’s support for the FixNICS Act, my bill with @JohnCornyn, is another sign the politics of gun violence are shifting rapidly. 2/ No one should pretend this bill alone is an adequate response to this epi-epidemic,” Murphy tweeted.ed.
The FixNICS Act woulduld penal-penalize government agencieses that do not report to the Nationalnal Instant Criminal Background Check Sys-System.
It was introduced afterer the Sun-Sunderland Springs, Texas,, church shooting last November,er, in which a man who hadd been booted out of the Air Force after a court-martial on a domestic violence charge killed 26 people.
Federal law barred him from owning a gun, but the Air Force failed to report the conviction in the FBI’s NICS.
The bill remains bogged down in the Senate, as does a similar bill in the House.
Trump reportedly considered changing his mind after hanging out with family and pals at Mar-aLago over the weekend.
During dinner on Saturday, Fox News host Geraldo Rivera proposed raising the legal age required to purchase military-style rifles from 18 to 21 — which might have prevented the 19-year-old Florida school shooter from getting his hands on an AR-15.
But Donald Trump Jr. — an avid NRA supporter and hunter — shot down that idea, CNN reported.
The president blamed last week’s shooting on mental illness — making no mention of guns.
Acting at the behest of both the NRA and ACLU, Trump in February 2017 killed an Obama-era regulation that made it harder for some people with mental illnesses to buy a weapon.
The regulation, ordered by then-President Barack Obama after the Connecticut massacre, required the Social Security Administration to report to the national gun database the
names of people who had been declared mentally unable to handle their finances.
The White House also said Trump would host a “listening session” on Wednesday with highschool students and teachers, but didn’t confirm if any of the Florida survivors would take part.
A group of students who survived the rampage also announced that they will hold a “March for Our Lives” rally in Washington, DC, on March 24 to highlight the need for gun control.
Trump wasn’t always the hardliner on guns he is today.
In his 2000 book, “The America We Deserve,” he said he supported the federal ban on assault weapons that went into effect in 1994 under then-President Bill Clinton and expired in 2004 under George W. Bush.