The NRA has already pushed back on Trump's modest proposals for gun control

Dana Loesch, the National Rifle Association spokeswoman.

NRA

The National Rifle Association pushed back Sunday against modest proposals by President Donald Trump and other Republicans to change US gun laws.
The NRA endorsed Trump in his 2016 presidential campaign, and he often trumpets his support for Americans' constitutional right to own guns.
Since the Florida shooting, Trump has declared support for raising the federal age limit for buying rifles to 21 from 18. He has also moved to ban bump stocks, which allow semiautomatic weapons to fire like automatics.

WASHINGTON — The National Rifle Association pushed back Sunday against modest proposals by President Donald Trump and other Republicans to change US gun laws after the school shooting in Florida that killed 17 people.

The powerful gun-lobby group does not support Trump's proposals to raise the age limit for buying certain types of guns and to ban devices known as bump stocks that enable semiautomatic rifles to shoot hundreds of rounds a minute, a spokeswoman said on ABC's "This Week."

"The NRA doesn't back any ban," Dana Loesch said.

The NRA endorsed Trump in his 2016 presidential campaign, and he often trumpets his support for Americans' constitutional right to own guns.

But the February 14 massacre at a Florida high school has mobilized high-school students to push for restrictions on gun sales, spurred several companies to sever ties with the NRA, and energized gun-control activists.

As November congressional elections draw closer, Trump and Republicans are under pressure to show they are responding to concerns about school safety without angering supporters who oppose gun control.

Since the Florida shooting, Trump has declared support for raising the federal age limit for buying rifles to 21 from 18. The 19-year-old charged with the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, bought his AR-15 semiautomatic rifle legally.

"That's what the NRA came out and said, that's correct," Loesch said when pressed on whether the group opposed raising the minimum age.

Trump also has asked the Justice Department to develop a regulation that would effectively ban the sale of bump stocks, an accessory used last year by the shooter who killed 58 people at a Las Vegas outdoor concert, the deadliest attack by a single gunman in US history.

Trump has also said he supports legislation to tighten background checks for gun buyers, though he has not provided specific details.

Republican Sen. Pat Toomey, a sponsor of a bill that would require background checks for weapons sold at gun shows and on the internet, said Trump's support could help advance proposals that floundered in years passed.

"Our president can play a huge and in fact probably decisive role in this. So I intend to give this another shot," Toomey said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

Legislation to close background-checks loopholes failed to clear the 60-vote threshold in the US Senate after a shooter killed 26 children and teachers in 2012 at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut.

'First on our list'

President Donald Trump.

Thomson ReutersSpeaking at a White House dinner for the nation's governors on Sunday, Trump said his meetings with them during the coming week would focus on school safety after the "horrible" Parkland shooting, describing the issue as "first on our list."

Tweaks to gun laws face an uphill battle among conservative Republicans in Congress. On Sunday, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky said he opposed changes to background-check laws and other restrictions on gun ownership.

"I wish that background checks stopped criminals or stopped school shootings, but they don't," Massie told NBC.

Trump has strongly endorsed the idea — backed by the NRA in the wake of the Newtown shooting — of arming trained teachers with guns, a suggestion that has been dismissed as untenable by many Democratic and Republican politicians.

Loesch said the NRA thought individual schools should decide whether to arm teachers. On Saturday, Trump said on Twitter the proposal would be left "up to states."

Loesch sought to play down the emerging differences between the NRA and the White House.

"I know that people are trying to find daylight between President Trump and 5 million law-abiding gun owners," she said. "He's really looking for solutions ... So far, nothing's been proposed yet."

The president's daughter Ivanka said in an interview with NBC News during a visit to South Korea for the Winter Olympics' closing ceremony that her father's suggestion for arming teachers was "an idea that needs to be discussed."

But asked whether she, a mother of three children, would consider providing teachers with firearms, she said: "To be honest, I don't know. Obviously, there would have to be an incredibly high standard for who would be able to bear arms in our school."

Let's block ads!(Why?)

Read again The NRA has already pushed back on Trump's modest proposals for gun control : http://ift.tt/2F3iFHX

Let's block ads! (Why?)