It appears that the push for new gun legislation might have gotten an unexpected boost from the White House. On Wednesday, it was reported that Donald Trump has been in talks with members of the Senate. This comes in the wake of the back-to-back shootings in El Paso and Dayton that left more than 30 people dead.
From NBC:
Among the senators with whom Trump has been discussing a proposed bill, according to a senior administration official, are Chris Murphy, D-Conn., one of the Senate’s leading gun control advocates, along with Pat Toomey, R-Pa., and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., two authors of a 2013 background checks bill that failed to pass in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.
On a similar front, Politico reports Arizona GOP Senator Martha McSally is drafting legislation that would make domestic terrorism a federal crime. Her bill will criminalize politically motivated violence and allow authorities to prosecute suspects on domestic terrorism charges.
“For too long we have allowed those who commit heinous acts of domestic terrorism to be charged with related crimes that don’t portray the full scope of their hateful actions,” McSally said. “That stops with my bill.
Meanwhile, according to The New York Times, Trump has indicated that he’s serious about persuading Republicans to take action on gun control. “We don’t want insane people, mentally ill people, bad people, dangerous people, we don’t want guns in the hands of the wrong people,” Trump declared. But there’s still widespread skepticism that anything will come of these talks.