President Trump’s proposals on new gun safety measures in the days since a school shooting in Parkland, Fla., last month have sent lawmakers scrambling to keep up with his rapidly evolving views.
Lurching from expressing his strong support for the National Rifle Association to teasing fellow Republicans about their fear of the gun-rights group, Trump has thrown out a wide range of ideas on gun control and school safety that left lawmakers on both sides to piece together a coherent plan from his proposals.
Trump’s suggestions on guns have included arming qualified teachers, raising the minimum age required to purchase certain kinds of firearms, confiscating guns from people suspected of having mental illness, and strengthening background checks for prospective gun owners. Some of his proposals — particularly the idea of taking guns away from people before they receive due process — have roiled conservatives who were already skeptical of Trump’s fidelity to the Second Amendment.
“What they’re into is the negotiation phase. They’re trying to put out everything possible to see where the bites are,” Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist, said of what the White House has done in the weeks since the Parkland rampage. “But they want to have something concrete done. They don’t want to be seen as doing nothing.”
The White House has instructed its allies to tread carefully on the most contentious gun-related issues, such as age limits and background checks.
For example, a set of talking points circulated by the White House on Feb. 26 and obtained by the Washington Examiner suggested surrogates and associates describe Trump as “supportive of the concept” of raising the minimum age for purchasing semi-automatic weapons from 18 to 21. The talking points noted simply that Trump wants “to strengthen the background check system overall.”
But the messaging guidance offered little in the way of specifics or firm positions, demonstrating the fluidity of the White House’s internal discussions on guns as Trump prepared to sit down with a bipartisan group of lawmakers later in the week.
That now-infamous meeting saw Trump veer from promising to “protect the rights of law-abiding Americans” to advocating that law enforcement officers “take the guns first, go through due process second” if a person is suspected of being mentally unstable.
Some Republicans reacted with shock to the president’s suggestion that authorities confiscate guns from people whose mental state had not yet been adjudicated.
“Is anyone ok with this, because I’m sure as hell not,” Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., tweeted on March 1. “I swore an oath to support and defend the [C]onstitution. Speak up.”
Unlike many Republicans who have engaged in the national conversation about guns over the past several years, Trump has openly discussed his relationship with the NRA and has even defended the organization that anti-gun activists frequently characterize as the powerful puppeteer behind pro-gun politicians.
“I’m a fan of the NRA. I mean, there’s no bigger fan. I’m a big fan of the NRA,” Trump said during his Feb. 28 meeting with Republican and Democratic lawmakers.
After Trump announced last week that he had shared a private lunch with NRA executives the weekend prior, critics seized on the subtle shift in the White House’s language about age limits as evidence that Trump had watered down his support for raising the age required to purchase semi-automatic weapons in response to the NRA’s opposition.
But Trump ribbed his fellow Republicans on Feb. 28 about their relationships to the NRA, encouraging lawmakers not to be “petrified” of the group’s opposition to raising the age limit for purchasing certain weapons.
“These are great patriots. They love our country. But that doesn’t mean we have to agree on everything,” Trump said of the NRA. “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. I don’t know.”
Brad Blakeman, a Republican strategist and former aide to George W. Bush, said Trump’s decision to open up his bipartisan meeting with lawmakers was a “brilliant” move.
“He left both sides with options and opportunities. He neither lectured nor demanded,” Blakeman said. “It is up to Congress to craft legislation that solves problems and is capable of getting to the [president’s] desk.”
Democrats have bristled at Trump’s push to incentivize teachers with the proper training to carry guns in schools. Some, including Washington’s Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee, have encouraged Trump to remove the proposal from his gun platform altogether in order to proceed with discussions on other measures.
“Republicans see this as a security issue. Democrats see this a gun issue, and that’s certainly where the rub comes,” O’Connell said. “[Trump] is trying to find where the sweet spot is.”
