In the wake of a high school shooting that left 17 dead in Parkland, Florida last week, lawmakers are considering a bill to bolster current laws that have failed to prevent people with criminal backgrounds from buying firearms.
President Trump gave the measure his endorsement Monday morning. In a statement, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Trump had spoken to Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn on Friday about a bipartisan bill the Texas Republican had introduced alongside Sen. Chris Murphy last winter after a church shooting in Sutherland Springs, Texas that left 26 people dead.
“While discussions are ongoing and revisions are being considered, the president is supportive of efforts to improve the federal background check system,” Sanders said.
The legislation holds federal agencies accountable and encourages states to provide all information to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) that disqualifies people with criminal backgrounds from purchasing firearms under current law. The bill does not include any new background check requirements or gun control measures, and it has the support of the National Rifle Association.
It boasts bipartisan support, with cosponsors including Tim Scott, Richard Blumenthal, Orrin Hatch, Dianne Feinstein, Dean Heller, and Jeanne Shaheen. The measure passed the House in December with a vote of 231-198. It has stalled in the Senate since.
Cornyn pushed for the bill after it was learned that the Sutherland Springs shooter was convicted of domestic abuse while he was in the Air Force and that the Air Force had failed to provide that information to the NICS—which would have stopped him from buying a gun.
Cornyn called for Congress to hold hearings to talk to experts about how to prevent future violence in a floor speech last Friday, when he reiterated his support for the background check legislation.
Trump’s public support for the bill comes amid a flurry of pleas from high school students who survived the Parkland shooting last week for lawmakers to take action to prevent such a shooting from occurring elsewhere. The Washington Post reported on Sunday night that Trump has been paying close attention to the students, some of whom have made a number of appearances on cable news and have had a heightened platform on social media in the days after the tragedy, and that the president had been asking members of his Mar-a-Lago resort in conversations over the weekend about whether he should support gun control measures.
Trump has emphasized a focus on mental illness after the shooting, yet he has put forward no comprehensive plan based on that approach. He also attacked Democrats on Twitter over the weekend for not taking action on gun control when they had majorities in Congress during the first years of Barack Obama’s presidency, alleging they did not actually want to pass such a bill.
Whether or not Congress will actually take action remains to be seen. After the October shooting at a concert in Las Vegas that killed 58 people and injured hundreds more, lawmakers from both parties talked about changing requirements for purchasing bump stocks, which the shooter had used to make his weapons more effective. Months later, no such legislation has been passed.
Connecticut Democrat Chris Murphy said on Twitter on Friday morning that Trump’s support for the bill was “another sign the politics of gun violence are shifting rapidly.”
But for him and the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High, it’s not enough. Students who survived the Parkland shooting and their families are planning a “March for Our Lives” in Washington, D.C. on March 24 to call on policy makers to consider gun control measures.
“No one should pretend this bill alone is an adequate response to this epidemic,” Murphy said.
