Even President Orange Crud wanted gun control....until the NRA bullied him out of it.
After El Paso shooting, Trump pushed again on gun control. His aides talked him out of it.
President Donald Trump met with senators at the White House after the school shooting in Parkland, Fla., in 2018 and forcefully argued for gun safety measures on live TV. But after meeting with N.R.A. officials behind closed doors, he backed down.Credit...Tom Brenner/The New York Times
One of the most extraordinary moments of Donald J. Trump’s presidency was an
with U.S. senators in the aftermath of the school shooting in Parkland, Fla., in which he forcefully argued for a litany of gun safety measures that the National Rifle Association had long opposed.
Mr. Trump’s support for gun control measures — which he unrolled on live television from the White House on Feb. 28, 2018* — astonished lawmakers from both parties. But the next day, N.R.A. officials met with Mr. Trump without any cameras or reporters in the room, and he immediately backed down.
That apparent surrender to N.R.A. pressure came to sum up Mr. Trump’s record on gun control in the eyes of his critics.
Unbeknownst to the public, however, Mr. Trump again pushed inside the White House for significant new gun-control measures more than a year later, after a pair of gruesome shooting sprees that unfolded over 13 hours. Those discussions have not previously been reported.
On Aug. 3, 2019, a far-right gunman killed 23 people at a Walmart store in El Paso. Early the next morning, a man shot and killed nine people outside a bar in Dayton, Ohio. Both assailants used semiautomatic rifles.
*