A6 FRIDAY, AUGUST 9, 2019 LATIMES.COM
THE NATION
WASHINGTON — Five
days after 31 people were
killed in two mass shootings,
President Trump has
sounded authoritative in
promising to do “something
big” to expand gun safety
laws — but his words are rid-
dled with enough ambiguity
to warrant questions about
his intent to follow through.
Before he left the White
House on Wednesday to
meet victims and first re-
sponders in Dayton, Ohio,
and El Paso, Trump told re-
porters “there is no political
appetite” for a ban on as-
sault-style weapons, which
were used in the massacres.
But, he went on, expand-
ing background checks for
gun purchases and transfers
may be a different story. He
has asked his lawyers what
he could achieve on gun safe-
ty through an executive or-
der in case Congress does
not act when it returns from
recess in September.
“There’s a great appetite
—and I mean a very strong
appetite — for background
checks,” Trump said. “And I
think we can bring up back-
ground checks like we’ve ne-
ver had before. I think both
Republican and Democrat
are getting close to a bill on
—they’re doing something
on background checks.”
The president has de-
fined an end goal — keeping
guns out of the hands of the
mentally ill — in broad
terms, seemingly conflating
background checks and so-
called red-flag laws in a way
so that either could be de-
fined as an accomplishment.
“I’m looking to do back-
ground checks,” he said. “I
think background checks
are important. I don’t want
to put guns into the hands of
mentally unstable people or
people with rage or hate, sick
people.”
But Trump’s optimism
does not seem to align with
Washington’s static political
reality. While opinion polls
show that expanding back-
ground checks is broadly
popular, a majority of Re-
publican lawmakers oppose
it, complicating the passage
of legislation by a deeply di-
vided Congress.
The president appears
sincere about wanting to ex-
pand background checks on
all gun purchases, seeing the
opportunity for another
Rose Garden signing cere-
mony celebrating a signa-
ture accomplishment. He
has conveyed as much to
Senate Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell and the
leadership of the National
Rifle Assn., according to two
people familiar with his
thinking.
But he has said that be-
fore, raising the hopes of gunsafety advocates, only to
back off.
Trump offered support
for expanding background
checks after a gunman with
a semiautomatic rifle killed
17 students and staff mem-
bers at a high school in Park-
land, Fla., in February 2018.
But he quickly abandoned
the idea after the NRA re-
acted negatively.
Now, as he restates his
willingness to accept uni-
versal background checks,
he is painting with a broad
rhetorical brush and leaving
himself plenty of wiggle
room for proposals that
would achieve far less.
He has stopped short of
endorsing a proposed bill to
expand background checks
on gun sales across the
country, although he spoke
this week with both cospon-
sors, Sens. Joe Manchin III(D-W.Va.) and Patrick J.
Toomey (R-Pa.). The bipar-
tisan legislation failed to
pass the Senate in 2013.
The NRA opposes the
Manchin-Toomey bill, and
the organization’s chief exe-
cutive, Wayne LaPierre, has
made that clear to the presi-
dent in recent days, accord-
ing to a person familiar with
recent conversations.
Twenty-one states now
require some level of back-
ground checks, including 12
that have passed universal
background check mea-
sures. But 29 states require
none.
After the weekend shoot-
ings, Sens. Lindsey Graham
(R-S.C.) and Richard Blu-
menthal (D-Conn.) an-
nounced bipartisan legisla-
tion that would create a fed-
eral grant program to en-
courage states to adopt “redflag” laws, which allow
courts to temporarily bar in-
dividuals from possessing
guns based on some show-
ing of imminent danger or a
risk of misuse.
At least 17 states and the
District of Columbia have
adopted such laws.
A 10-year ban on assault
weapons and high-capacity
magazines, passed in 1994 as
part of a Clinton administra-
tion crime bill, included a
sunset provision that al-
lowed the ban to expire in- Studies show mixed re-
sults in assessing the ban’s
effectiveness at reducing
deaths from mass shoot-
ings.
In a tweet this week,
Trump floated the idea of ty-
ing an expansion of gun re-
strictions to his demands for
stricter immigration laws.
Since both issues are politi-
cally explosive, some aides
have tried to scuttle the idea,
but the president still sees it
as a long-shot possibility.
Ultimately, if the NRA or
Senate Republicans give
ground and support an ex-
pansion of background
checks, Trump will need to
persuade them to do so by
providing enough political
pressure and political cover.
The president, always
wary of upsetting his base of
ardent supporters, may be
loath to spend his political
capital to try to change long-
held conservative ortho-
doxy on the 2nd Amend-
ment, especially as he’s be-
ginning a difficult reelection
campaign.
“If he’s serious, he will get
on the phone with Mitch Mc-
Connell and demand that
the Senate comes back from
recess and votes on legisla-
tion that’s being drafted,”
said Shannon Watts, a co-
founder of Everytown for
Gun Safety, an advocacy
group. “If they continue sit-
ting on their hands, there
will be hell to pay in the ...
2020 elections.”
Amid a seemingly end-
less epidemic of gun violence
in America, public opinion
appears to be gradually
shifting toward stricter gun
laws.
According to a Quinni-
piac University poll released
in May, 94% of U.S. voters
support requiring back-
ground checks for all gun
buyers, as do 90% of gun
owners.
Overall, 60% of voters
support stricter gun laws in
general — but a majority of
Republicans still do not.
“If those polls are true, if
90% of gun owners support
background checks, those
are Trump voters too,”
Watts said. “There isn’t a
parent in this country right
now who isn’t afraid that
their child will be next, and
that’s among Democrats
and Republicans alike.”Trump mixes signals on new gun laws
PALLBEARERSwheel El Paso victim Elsa Mendoza Marquez’s casket to Mass in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on
Thursday. President Trump sometimes indicates he’s open to more background checks for gun purchases.Mario TamaGetty ImagesBy Eli Stokols