President Trump is open to congressional efforts to enhance the federal background check system for gun purchases, the White House said in a statement issued Monday morning, less than a week after the Parkland, Fla., massacre.
“While discussions are ongoing and revisions are being considered, the president is supportive of efforts to improve the Federal background check system,” White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said.
Sanders added that Trump spoke on Friday with Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, about a bipartisan bill he introduced with Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn. The legislation would improve how state and federal governments report on people who are convicted of crimes, and could ban more from purchasing guns.
The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting last Monday resulted in the death of 17 people. Fourteen others were wounded in the attack.
Trump has been staying at his Mar-a-Lago resort in West Palm Beach, Fla., since Friday. He visited victims of the Parkland shooting at a local hospital Friday evening.
Over the weekend, he held an informal survey of members at his luxury resort to ask if they believed he should lead the efforts to reform gun purchase laws, according to a report.
The White House’s Monday statement did not confirm the verbal poll or indicate how his hotel club members told him he should proceed.
Meanwhile, five of the survivors of the Florida shooting announced Sunday morning they will hold a nationwide March for Our Lives on March 24, to protest the lack of any movement on gun control legislation in Congress.
“We are organizing it so students everywhere can beg for our lives,” Cameron Kasky, a junior, told Fox News. “We are giving all our politicians a clean slate, and in the next election we are saying if you are accepting money from the NRA there is a badge of shame on you because you are enabling things like this to happen.”
Trump told members of his Mar-a-Lago Club in West Palm Beach, Fla., over the weekend that he was closely monitoring the media appearance of the students who survived the attack.
The president did not golf over the weekend after aides advised him against it so soon after the shooting, according to the Washington Post. By Monday morning, Reuters reporter Jeff Mason spotted Trump arriving at his golf course. He is scheduled to leave Palm Beach at 4 p.m. EST Monday.
.@realDonaldTrump has just arrived at his golf course, the first time he has come here in the morning since arriving in Florida for the long weekend. Friday night he and @FLOTUS visited victims and first responders from the #FloridaSchoolShooting. pic.twitter.com/8yl1GimN0o
— Jeff Mason (@jeffmason1) February 19, 2018
