Trump is Promising Action on Gun Control. Don't Hold Your Breath
The president is sounding like a changed man on gun regulations in the aftermath of the trio of mass shootings in Gilroy, El Paso and Dayton. On the south lawn of the White House on Friday, Trump insisted. “We have tremendous support for common sense background checks.”
“I think we can get something really good done,” Trump added. “I really want to see it happen.”
In his implausible address to reporters, the president said that he was working the levers of power to clear the way for action. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, he claimed, was “totally onboard.” Trump also suggested he could use his clout with the National Rifle Association to get the gun lobby to be, if not supportive, at least “a little more neutral.”
Is this a true change of heart? Are we witnessing a Nixon-to-China moment with a Republican president finally breaking the log jam on gun control?
Or is this, instead, a cynical PR ploy — with Trump and the gun lobby using happy talk and false promises to ride out the political heat of the moment, to later bog down momentum for change?
The president’s own past reversals on background checks — and the lessons of the gun control push after the Newtown massacre that left 20 elementary school students and six educators dead in 2012 — suggest that anyone taking Trump’s promises of action at face value is about to be taken for a ride.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-empty-promise-gun-control-870020/
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