Donald J Trump’s Gun Flip
Is it a “mental issue” or a “gun issue”–will our president choose?
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President Trump is acting as if he is holding an assault rifle, in the days following the most recent mass shooting. His position on gun control has been very inconsistent over time.
On Feb. 28, 2017, President Trump signed a bill that undid regulations that would have kept guns out of the hands of the mentally ill. The original law was enacted by President Obama during his 8-year term. It stated that people who received Social Security benefits for mental illnesses were considered unable to handle their own finances and could not purchase a firearm through the background check process. This regulation was part of the Implementation of the NICS Improvement Amendments Act of 2007 and had come into effect on Dec. 19, 2016, shortly before Trump took office.
Tweets from the same source expressing different views show our president’s changing position.
That same month, Trump’s Justice Department removed 500,000 people labeled as “fugitives” from the background check system, meaning that individuals with an outstanding arrest warrant would be able to pass a background check, per New York Magazine.
Throughout 2015, Donald Trump was pro-gun and in favor of straightening out mental health issues. In 2016, he was a strong supporter of the second amendment; in 2017, he said that if there is a situation that involves a gun, another gun is needed to solve that problem. This year, President Trump is supporting a modest set of fixes to gun laws, stepping back from some of the more sweeping changes he had considered after the country’s latest mass school shooting.
