Hold fire on gun control

The White House on Friday hedged on the gun-control measures that President Trump seemed to back during a meeting with lawmakers this week, saying his positions were more in line with those favored by the GOP.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders stressed Trump will “continue to support the Second Amendment, that’s not something that he’s backed away from.”

She added that the president was only lukewarm about universal background checks.

“The background-check system is something that he’s still very much interested in improving. Not necessarily universal background checks, but certainly improving the background-check system,” she said.

Asked about raising the minimum age required to buy a firearm from 18 to 21, the press secretary was noncommittal — saying that perhaps it would be better handled on the state level.

“Conceptually, he still supports raising the age to 21. But he also knows there’s not a lot of broad support for that,” she said. “I think he thinks it would probably have more potential in the states than it would at the federal level.”

During Wednesday’s White House meeting, the president stunned Republicans and Democrats alike by seeming to favor gun-control measures that have long been anathema to gun-rights advocates and his red-state base.

He called for tougher background checks, raising the minimum age and confiscating guns from the mentally ill without due process — positions the National Rifle Association opposes.

Sanders said Trump — for now — backs a bill proposed by Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) that incrementally strengthens background checks by requiring that government agencies report some gun and criminal background data to the feds.

Trump and Vice President Mike Pence met Thursday with the NRA’s top lobbyist, Chris Cox, who quickly tweeted that Trump and Pence don’t want additional gun control.