About a month has passed since the Parkland, Florida shooting, and since then, the president’s position on gun control efforts has shifted like sand. However, Donald Trump penned a series of Tweets this morning that offer some clarity, at least for the moment.
Trump now claims support for strengthening background checks, banning bump stocks (which last year’s Las Vegas shooter used while killing 58 people) and arming teachers. He went on to say: “On 18 to 21 Age Limits, watching court cases and rulings before acting. States are making this decision. Things are moving rapidly on this, but not much political support (to put it mildly).”
The court case he refers to there involves the gun industry’s seemingly invincible lobbying arm and Florida, which recently passed a gun control package that includes raising the age limit for buying rifles to 21. On Friday, the National Rifle Association sued Florida’s attorney general and the head of its law enforcement department, alleging the nascent law violates the Second Amendment.
Trump said age limits don’t have political support, but polls, policy changes at big retailers and the actions of some conservatives suggest that support is much stronger than the president claims.
In fact, the numbers signal bipartisan support:
- A Politico/Morning Consult poll from late February found 81 percent of Americans support requiring all gun buyers to be at least 21. Also, 82 percent of those polled supported requiring a minimum age of 21 for those who purchase assault-style weapons.
- With almost identical findings, an NPR/Ipsos poll from around the same time found that 82 percent of Americans support raising the legal age for gun purchases to 21. While an unsurprising majority of Democrats support it, 72 percent of Republicans reported somewhat or strongly favoring the idea.
- Almost 80 percent of Floridians supported increasing the age for all gun purchases to 21 in a February Quinnipiac poll.
Retailers have stepped up: Walmart and Dick’s Sporting Goods both increased their stores’ age limits to purchase guns to 21 last month. Dick’s decision followed the discovery that it had legally sold a gun to the Parkland shooter, although it wasn’t used during the high school massacre. “We don’t want to be part of a mass shooting,” Dick’s CEO Edward Stack said.
And finally: It deserves emphasis that Florida’s bill increasing the age limit for rifle purchases passed with a majority-Republican legislature and was signed into law by a Republican governor, Rick Scott, who also has spoken out against arming teachers.
Contact Mollie Bryant at 405-990-0988 or bryant@bigiftrue.org. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.
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