Trump's Smoking Gun

President Trump, speaking with a group of governors, said that "we have to have action" in the aftermath of the shooting in Florida and pressed for the governors not to be "afraid" of challenging the National Rifle Association. He assured he would find a way to rid the use of bump fire stocks and called out for the advancement and improvement of mental health programs. We can see he wants to do something on guns, but he doesn’t know what. In the meeting he, somehow, managed to simultaneously praise and express his desire to "fight" the gun lobby and stated he pushed the NRA's leaders during a lunch to back reforms to U.S. gun laws.
 "Don't worry about the NRA, they're on our side," Trump said. "Half of you are so afraid of the NRA. There's nothing to be afraid of. ... And you know what, if they're not with you, we have to fight them every once in a while, that's OK. Sometimes we're going to have to be very tough and we're going to have to fight 'em." Such a well-spoken gentleman, isn’t he? Trump also said he met with NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre and Chris Cox, the head of the NRA's lobbying efforts, the two figures who have most prominently pushed the organization's opposition to tightening US gun laws over the years. However, he has yet to lay out a decisive framework for his proposals, but over the weeks he had indicated his support for actions of which the NRA remains opposed. Actions such as raising the age for purchasing semiautomatic rifles and banning bump stocks. "Bump stocks, we're writing that out. I'm writing that out myself," Trump said. "I don't care if Congress does it or not." Trump has also called for improvements in the background check system. Surprisingly, a small portion of the NRA supports this although it remains uncertain if he is calling for more significant changes the NRA opposes. "We have to have action. We don't have any action. It happens, a week goes by, let's keep talking. Another week goes by, we keep talking. Two months go by, all of a sudden everybody is off to the next subject. And when it happens again, everybody is angry and let's start talking again. We've got to stop," he said. We can see a gap appearing between him and his $30 million in backing in his 2016 presidential bid from the NRA. Trump called the NRA officials "great patriots" and assured that "there's no bigger fan of the 2nd Amendment than me and there's no bigger fan of the NRA." Trump also focused in on mental health issues, calling for improvements in "early warning response systems" and restating his need for increasing the level of ability of law enforcement to involuntarily commit individuals to "mental institutions," just like "in the old days." "You know, in the old days we had mental institutions, had a lot of them, and you could nab somebody like this because, you know, they did. They knew he was -- something was off," Trump said. "We're going to have to start talking about mental institutions, because a lot of the folks in this room closed their mental institutions also."

Despite facing criticism from many, Trump continued to promote his proposal to arm trained teachers in classrooms who could defend students, stating gun-free zones to be "an invitation for these very sick people" to carry out mass shootings. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee confronted Trump over the proposal during the White House session on Monday, telling Trump that teachers and law enforcement are exceedingly opposed to the idea. "I have listened to the biology teachers, and they don't want to do that," Inslee said. "I have listened to the first-grade teachers who don't want to be pistol-packing first-grade teachers. I have listened to law enforcement, who have said they don't want to have to train teachers as law enforcement agencies, which takes about six months."