Trump’s fiction on gun violence, economy

WASHINGTON » It was a week of exaggeration and outright fiction for President Donald Trump as he confronted the aftermath of two mass shootings in Texas and Ohio.

Trump twisted science in seeking to assign blame on video games for the shootings, rather than on his own words that critics say contributed to a combustible racial climate spawning violence. He pointed to an imminent magic solution in the form of legislation on background checks that was far from certain and misrepresented his record on gun control.

Escalating a potentially devastating trade war with China, Trump exaggerated the benefits of tariffs and sought unfairly to fault the Federal Reserve for any weakness in the U.S. economy.

Meanwhile, former Vice President Joe Biden claimed Trump did nothing on gun control, but in fact Trump banned bump stocks, a gun attachment deemed legal during the Obama-Biden administration.

A review: on the mass shootings.

THE FACTS: There is no scientific link between video games and mass violence.

Some studies show a short-term increase in aggressive thoughts and feelings after playing video games, but nothing that rises to the level of violence.

In 2006, a small study by Indiana University researchers found that teenagers who played violent video games showed higher levels of emotional arousal but less activity in the parts of the brain associated with the ability to plan, control and direct thoughts and behavior.

“Plenty of gamers and get upset when they lose or feel the game was ‘cheating,’ but it doesn’t lead to violent outputs,” said Benjamin Burroughs, a professor of emerging media at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Patrick Markey, a psychology professor at Villanova University who focuses on video games, found in his research that men who commit severe acts of violence actually play violent video games less than the average male. About 20% were interested in violent video games, compared with 70% of the general population, he said.

Another study by Markey and his colleagues showed that violence tends to dip when a new violent movie or video game comes out, possibly because people are at home playing the game or in theaters watching the movie.

Trump’s statements this past week assigning blame to the video game industry were more reserved compared with his last brush with the subject in 2018, when he called video games “vicious” and summoned game-industry executives to meet at the White House, to little lasting effect.

• • • TRUMP, on prospects for gun control legislation: “There’s a great appetite — and I mean a very strong appetite — for background checks. And I think we can bring up background checks like we’ve never had before. I think both Republican and Democrat are getting close to a bill on — they’re doing something on background checks.” — remarks to reporters Wednesday before departing for Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas.

THE FACTS: He’s overstating the level of political will for gun control measures.

Passage of a background checks bill in the Senate remains far from certain. Support for a bipartisan background checks measure co- sponsored by Republican Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia reached a high point with a 2013 vote after the Sandy Hook shooting, but it fell short of the 60 votes needed to advance. Both senators spoke to Trump on Monday.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, under pressure to call senators back to Washington from their summer recess to work on gun measures, said Thursday that he hopes to consider legislation to expand federal background checks when Congress returns in the fall. He said he wants to spend the August recess talking with senators to see what’s possible.

Two other gun bills have passed the House this year but languished in the Republican-controlled Senate. One of them would require federal background checks for all firearms sales and transfers, including those online or at gun shows. The second bill allows an expanded 10-day review for gun purchases.

With gun control legislation stalled, some senators have pushed for a bipartisan proposal to create a federal grant program to encourage states to adopt “red flag” laws to take guns away from people believed to be a danger to themselves or others. But it remains to be seen if such a law could pass Congress.

• • •

BIDEN, Democratic presidential candidate: Trump is “doing nothing — nothing about the endemic and epidemic of guns that is fueling a literal carnage in America.” — remarks Wednesday in Burlington, Iowa.

THE FACTS: He’s wrong that Trump did absolutely nothing on gun control

A nationwide ban took effect in March on bump stocks, the attachment used by the gunman in the 2017 Las Vegas massacre to make his weapons fire rapidly like machine guns.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives outlawed the attachments at Trump’s direction after the shootings killed more than 50 people in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. It is the only major gun restriction imposed by the federal government in the past few years.

The Trump administration’s move was an aboutface for the bureau. In 2010, under the Obama-Biden administration, it found that the devices were legal. But under the Trump administration, officials revisited that determination and found it incorrect.

After the Las Vegas shootings, the National Rifle Association initially said “devices designed to allow semi- automatic rifles to function like fullyautomatic rifles should be subject to additional regulations.” After the bureau’s ruling banning the devices, however, the gun lobby called it “disappointing” and said it should have provided amnesty for gun owners who already have bump stocks.

The government estimates that more than 500,000 bump stocks were sold after they were legalized in 2010.

• • • TRUMP, on gun restrictions: “We have done much more than most administrations. ...We’ve done, actually, a lot.” — remarks on Aug. 4 to reporters.

THE FACTS: Trump’s record on gun control is not groundbreaking.

Congress has proved unable to pass substantial gun violence legislation, despite the frequency of mass shootings, in large part because of resistance from Republicans, particularly in the GOP- controlled Senate. That political dynamic seems difficult to change.

It’s true that after other mass shootings Trump called for strengthening the federal background check system, and in 2018, he signed legislation to increase federal agency data sharing. In December 2018, the Trump administration also banned bump stocks.

But he has rolled back restrictions, reneged on pledges and resisted Democratic calls to toughen other gun control laws.

Within weeks of taking office, Trump scrapped a federal rule imposed by Obama that could have made it harder for some mentally ill people to own guns. Under the rule, the Social Security Administration was supposed to provide information to the gun- buying background check system on recipients with a mental disorder so severe they cannot work or handle their own benefit checks. The rule didn’t make certain people ineligible to buy a firearm but was designed to ensure the background check system was comprehensive.

In February, the House approved bipartisan legislation to require federal background checks for all gun sales and transfers and approved legislation to allow a review period of up to 10 days for background checks on firearms purchases. The White House threatened a