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WASHINGTON – President Trump’s decision to hold off on proposing an increase in the minimum age to buy any gun from 18 to 21 — after he initially voiced his strong support — shouldn’t come as a shock from someone prone to public zigzagging.
Trump signaled support to senators last fall for a bill to prop up the Affordable Care Act until he backtracked the next day.
He told senators in January he was ready to back a bipartisan immigration bill until he reversed course within hours.
Last week, he endorsed a face-toface summit with Kim Jong Un after he tweeted in October that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was “wasting his time” trying to negotiate with the North Korean dictator.
In a meeting with lawmakers two weeks ago, Trump said, “It doesn’t make sense that I have to wait until I’m 21 to get a handgun, but I can get this weapon at 18,” referring to the AR-15-style assault weapon that was used to kill 17 people and wound 15 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., on Feb. 14.
When the White House unveiled its school safety plan Sunday night, the only mention of the age proposal was that it would be one of 11 issues a commission headed by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos would study.
Trump tweeted that he’s “watching court cases and rulings” before proposing an age increase, but he noted there’s “not much political support (to put it mildly).”
Spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said Monday that the president had not abandoned the idea of raising the gunbuying age but that the plan released Sunday reflects what the executive branch can achieve now.
“The president, as you know, doesn’t have the ability to just create federal law,” Sanders said. “So what he is pushing forward are things that can be immediately accomplished either through the administration or that have broadbased bipartisan support in Congress.
“But that doesn’t mean that he has wiped away some of those other things. We’re still looking at how best we can move forward.”
Gun control advocates said the reason for Trump’s retreat is obvious: He caved to the National Rifle Association.
“To no one’s surprise, the president’s words of support for stronger gun safety laws proved to be hollow,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who backs a ban on assault weapons. “Responding to the murder of 17 students and educators by endorsing the gun lobby’s platform is a shameful abdication of the president’s responsibility to lead.”
At the same meeting with lawmakers on Feb. 28, when he discussed raising the gun-buying age, the president alarmed gun rights supporters by suggesting he would confiscate guns from people who posed threats, then “go through due process.”
The plan he unveiled Sunday makes no mention of such confiscation. Instead, it directs the Justice Department “to provide technical assistance” to states interested in implementing extreme risk protection orders under which courts would have to approve the removal of guns from someone the state considered a safety risk.
Trump was accused of a similar course reversal in January when he summoned Sens. Lindsey Graham, RS.C., and Dick Durbin, D-Ill., to the White House to discuss what they thought was his support for their compromise bill to protect hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants brought to the USA as children. He expressed his opposition to the deal when they arrived, they said.
That followed similar promises to protect those immigrants that Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Trump made them during a White House dinner in September.
Contributing: David Jackson and Greg Toppo, USA TODAY