President Trump was crystal clear on federal firearms policy this week: Seize weapons from people under certain circumstances without due process and rename a gun bill now before Congress.
The president declared the government should confiscate firearms from some people who may struggle with mental illness.
“I like taking the guns early,” Trump said. “Take the guns first. Go through due process second.”
The president also confidently instructed lawmakers to revise the heading on legislation designed to bolster the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, known as the “Fix NICS” measure.
“Maybe you change the title,” he told them at Wednesday’s White House firearms confab. “The ‘U.S. Background Check Bill,’ or whatever.”
And with that, Trump presented Congress with concrete directions on how to solve the nation’s scourge of gun violence.
It’s now been two-and-a-half weeks since the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, Florida. Yet any action guns is at least another few weeks away — if ever.
The Senate leadership can’t forge an agreement to consider any gun bill next week, planning instead to wrestle with a handful of nominations and a banking-reform package.
Saying that Congress is close to debating firearms is like saying the curling competition is about to wrap up at the Winter Olympics.
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, blocked the Senate this week from launching debate on the background checks bill. Many Democrats and some Republicans want to address more than just better background checks. But nobody is sure the chamber can ever reach an accord just to start debate on any firearms legislation.
Congress has faced this crossroads before — Columbine, Virginia Tech, Aurora, Newtown, Charleston, San Bernardino, Orlando, Las Vegas … .
Lawmakers of both parties have professed that things were “different” after each of those episodes.
Still …
“We’re at a tipping point,” observed Rep. Elizabeth Esty, D-Conn., at the White House meeting. Esty represents Newtown.
Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., wasn’t at the meeting and disagreed with Esty’s assessment.
“I’m not sure this will be a tipping point,” he said. “But it’s my sense that the ground has moved. Maybe ever so slightly. But at least enough that politicians can’t run and hide on this.”
So just how seismic was the attack at Parkland? Did the tectonic political plates really shift to compel legislative movement? How seismic were any of the other mass shootings? They certainly seemed to be seismic.
But none evoked a c ongressional response. In other words, the other mass shootings were just fissures. Despite astonishing events, perhaps the “big one” really hasn’t hit yet on guns. A gun attack so violent that it will tear apart the San Andreas Fault on this issue and force action.
A number of Senate Republicans tell Fox their conference is divided on what to do, if anything at all. Fox is told there is one wing of Republicans
