President Trump addressed a possible ban of bump stocks — devices that cause semi-automatic rifles to fire like automatic weapons — during his meeting with the nation’s governors Monday morning. He said he would “put them into the machine gun category” and ban them himself if Congress is unable to take action. “They’re gone,” he told the governors.
The White House gathering was part of the National Governors Association Winter Meeting, and Sunday evening, the president had promised that addressing guns and school shooting would be on their agenda Monday, almost two weeks after the Parkland, Florida shooting.
“We’ll turn our grief into action, we have to have action,” the president urged.
The president announced last week that he directed Attorney General Jeff Sessions to draft regulations that would ban any devices that would turn legal, semi-automatic firearms into automatic weapons.
The president also said he’s had discussions with leadership at the National Rifle Association, including CEO Wayne LaPierre, NRA’s chief lobbyist Chris Cox and NRA’s Deputy Executive Director and General Counsel David Lehman. Mr. Trump said he had lunch with them over the weekend and told them “we need to to do something.”
“Don’t worry about the NRA, they’re on our side,” said Mr. Trump. He added, “They think they’re doing what’s right, but sometimes we need to be tough.”
At the meeting, Mr. Trump slammed reports that deputies who were on the scene of the shooting did not enter Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School when the shooting began. “The way they performed was frankly disgusting,” the president said.
“I really believe I’d run in there even if I didn’t have a weapon,” he added.
Sheriff Scott Israel told CNN on Sunday that investigators are looking into claims that three other deputies were on the scene but failed to enter the school when the chance to save lives still existed. To date, the investigation pointed to only one deputy being on campus while the killer was present, he said.
During an exchange with one governor, the president’s proposal to arm school teachers was challenged. Washington Governor Jay Inslee claimed that many teachers don’t want to to carry guns and law enforcement doesn’t want them to as well. Instead, he recommended the president do “a little less tweeting” and “a little more listening.”
Mr. Trump had suggested last week that teachers who were trained in being “adept at guns” could receive a bonus for their training efforts. The president argued that arming teachers would be “much less expensive than the guards” and would more effective in preventing mass shooting events.
“You come into our schools you’re gonna be dead. And it’s gonna be fast,” he said. “I want my schools protected like my banks are protected.”
He said on Monday there would be a “major retaliation” by “gun adept” teachers in preventing a shooting.
The president also broached the topic of mental health reform. He suggested that the country needs to think about reopening mental institutions in an effort to stop would-be shooters from committing similar mass shootings. “We have nothing between a prison and leaving him at his house,” the president said. He said to the governors, “so you folks need to start thinking of that.”
The White House has said it is currently in the “listening phase” on guns, but several proposals for reforms, including arming teachers in schools, have been floated as measures Mr. Trump might support.
Meanwhile, the president also confirmed that North Korea wants to pursue talks with the U.S. — on the possibility of diplomatic talks, Mr. Trump said, “we’ll see what happens.”
The White House said in a statement on Sunday that the administration is “committed to achieving the complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”
“The maximum pressure campaign must continue until North Korea denuclearizes. As President Trump has said, there is a brighter path available for North Korea if it chooses denuclearization. We will see if Pyongyang’s message today, that it is willing to hold talks, represents the first steps along the path to denuclearization. In the meantime, the United States and the world must continue to make clear that North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs are a dead end,” the statement added.
Mr. Trump told the governors “we want to talk also but only under the right conditions.”
