Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Dems press Trump on gun safety
House Speaker Pelosi asks the president to demand passage of a bill to expand background checks.
WASHINGTON — Congressional Democrats are pressing President Donald Trump to intervene with Senate Republicans and demand passage of a bipartisan bill to expand background checks for gun purchases.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said Trump’s “urgent, personal intervention is needed to stem the endless massacres of our fellow Americans by gunfire.”
They implored Trump in a letter released Monday to “seize this moment when your leadership and influence over Republicans in Congress on the issue of guns is so critical.”
Trump must not “squander” the opportunity for meaningful action on gun violence “by acceding to NRA-backed proposals or other weak ideas that will do nothing to stop the continuing, horrific spread of gun violence,” the Democrats said.
The letter came as Congress returned to the Capitol from a six-week break, with gun violence legislation at the top of the agenda.
A group of U.S. mayors, meanwhile, urged lawmakers to approve the Housepassed background checks bill, which would expand background checks to cover private sales such as one that allowed a suspected west Texas gunman to buy his weapon before killing seven people last month.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has made it clear that he won’t take action on guns without Trump’s commitment to sign a bill into law.
But Trump has flipflopped on guns, first suggesting he’d be open to background checks legislation or other measures to try to stem gun violence, only to backtrack after speaking to the National Rifle Association and others in the gun lobby.
McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, wants to avoid a politically uncomfortable situation of forcing Republicans to vote on guncontrol bills only to have Trump reject them.
Dayton, Ohio, Mayor Nan Whaley, who has emerged as a leading guncontrol advocate following a mass shooting that killed nine in her city last month, said members of the U.S. Conference of Mayors are focusing on background checks as a first step to stem gun violence.
A letter signed by 278 mayors from both parties urges Congress to act on the House-passed bill.
“We want an up-ordown vote on the House bill,” Whaley said in an interview before she and other mayors met with White House counselor Kellyanne Conway and other officials Monday.
Whaley, a Democrat, called prevention of gun violence an issue that crosses party lines.
“We want some Republicans to do the right thing here and (vote for) something that 90% of the American people say makes the most sense” to prevent gun violence, she said.