Trump freewheels at strategy session
WASHINGTON >> President Donald Trump launched into a freewheeling, televised strategy session with lawmakers over the issue of guns by declaring that he will unilaterally bar so-called “bump stocks” and asking Congress to send him “one terrific bill” aimed at reducing gun violence.
“I’m going to write that out,” Trump said of bump stocks — devices that allow semi-automatic weapons to fire like fully automatic weapons — while speaking to lawmakers gathered at the White House for a muchtouted summit on gun safety.
Saying he can bar bump stocks with an executive order, Trump added: “You won’t have to worry about bump stocks.”
Trump also pressed lawmakers to send him “one terrific bill” combining several proposals aimed at reducing gun violence, although that could complicate the legislative outlook for such a contentious issue. Congress is already struggling to clear a relatively noncontroversial measure meant to simply improve the reporting of key information to a federal background-checks database.
“It would be so beautiful to have one bill,” Trump told lawmakers at the White House.
One of the strangest moments came when he argued that the alleged shooter in the tragedy in Parkland, Florida — about whom there were numerous red flags — should have had his guns taken away regardless of what the law allowed.
“I think they should have taken them away, whether they had the right or not,” Trump said. He added later, in case there was any doubt: “Take the guns first, go through due process second.”
The session came weeks after a high school shooting in Parkland, Florida, that left 17 dead and spurred fresh calls for action to tighten gun restrictions.
On Wednesday, two California lawmakers moved to raise the legal age for buying a rifle or shotgun to 21, the same as for handguns. State Sen. Anthony Portantino, D-La Cañada Flintridge, submitted a bill that would raise the age requirement for buying all firearms to 21 and to limit buyers to one gun purchase every 30 days.
“Like most Americans, I was horrified by the recent events in Florida,” Portantino said in a statement. “I feel it’s imperative that California leads when Washington refuses to act.”
A spokesman for Assemblyman Rob Bonta, D-Oakland, said he plans to introduce a bill as early as next week that would raise the firearm purchase age for all guns to 21.
In a statement Wednesday, Walmart said that it would raise the minimum age required to buy a firearm from its stores to 21 from 18, a decision it said it made “in light of recent events” — most notably the national discussion about gun control that has spilled back into the public forefront since the Feb. 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
Earlier in the day, Dick’s Sporting Goods announced that it would stop selling assault rifles and high-capacity magazines, and raise the minimum age it requires to buy a gun to 21.
Hours before the summit, Democrats called on Trump to back expanded background checks, throwing their weight behind a measure that failed to advance through Congress after the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.
Now, in the wake of the Feb. 14 high school shooting, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and other top Democrats think that Trump could help muscle through a measure that has long been opposed by the National Rifle Association and many Republican lawmakers.
Trump tweeted support last month for “comprehensive” background checks, and Republican leaders have interpreted that as support for a narrow measure aimed at improving
the reporting of disqualifying offenses to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS.
But Democrats are looking at a much broader expansion of background checks, pushing legislation that “at minimum” would mandate them for all private gun sales — including those conducted at gun shows or over the internet. Currently, only federally licensed firearms dealers must conduct such checks.
“It makes no sense that an individual who is denied a gun by a federally licensed dealer can simply visit a gun show or go online to purchase the same gun that they were denied at the store,” said the letter sent to Trump on Wednesday, signed by Schumer and fellow Democratic senators Bill Nelson of Florida, Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota.
In 2013, just months after the Sandy Hook tragedy, a version of the legislation was proposed by Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.
Va., and Patrick Toomey, R-Pa. It failed to advance on a 54-46 vote, falling short of the necessary 60. Five Democrats and 41 Republicans opposed it.
The NRA opposed the legislation at the time, arguing that it “will not prevent the next shooting, will not solve violent crime and will not keep our kids safe in schools.”
Manchin and Toomey have expressed a willingness to revisit their legislation, and a number of senators who voted no in 2013 have said since the recent shooting in Florida that they might be willing to reconsider their positions.
“Were you to endorse legislation to require a background check on every gun purchase, without other poison pill provisions attached, we could finally move much closer toward the comprehensive system that you called for after the Stoneman Douglas attack,” the Democratic senators wrote.
“I think they should have taken them away, whether they had the right or not. Take the guns first, go through due process second.” — President Donald Trump