Trump to push ahead on gun training for school employees, white house says

pulse

March 12, 2018 4:48 AM

President Donald Trump is planning to move ahead with his contentious proposal to provide firearms training to school employees and intends to establish a federal commission...

But the administration’s efforts appeared to be piecemeal and of limited scope, falling far short of the language Trump has used for weeks about the need to end the scourge of school shootings, including at a dramatic meeting with relatives of victims of the Parkland, Florida, massacre.

In a call with reporters, the White House laid out a series of proposals that it said Trump intended to pursue to increase school safety.

The White House said it wanted to partner with local officials to provide “rigorous firearms training” to school personnel, including teachers and other volunteers who want such training. Trump first proposed the idea shortly after a gunman killed 17 people in Parkland last month.

Beyond saying that the Justice Department would work with local officials to provide firearms training, the White House offered few specifics.

The proposals did not include Trump’s repeated call to raise the age for buying certain firearms to 21 from 18, an idea that has been opposed by the National Rifle Association.

White House officials said the new Federal Commission on School Safety would study the notion of raising the age over the next year. The commission will be led by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

Trump has denounced the type of commission he is appointing to study the issue. At a rally Saturday night in Pennsylvania, he said such panels were the sort of empty solution Washington often relies on instead of actually fixing problems.

The plans described by the officials are set to be unveiled formally on Monday.

The administration intends to press states to focus on options like extreme risk protection orders to curtail access to firearms for people with mental health problems.

The president will also push for Congress to pass a bill, sponsored by Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Christopher S. Murphy, D-Conn., to improve reporting to the national background check system — a modest step backed by the NRA.

Trump has sowed confusion over where he stands on gun control measures. He has voiced sympathy for those who want to see tighter age restrictions for gun purchases and even more comprehensive measures, but at other times, he has sounded more sympathetic to the NRA, which was a major contributor to his 2016 campaign.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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