President Donald Trump said on Friday that he has reassured the National Rifle Association that its views about the right to bear arms won’t be ignored in Washington’s response to recent mass shootings.
Mr. Trump said he is talking with the NRA and others to make sure that their “very strong views can be fully represented and respected”.
“I am the biggest Second Amendment person there is, but we all must work together for the good and safety of our Country,” Mr. Trump tweeted.
“Common sense things can be done that are good for everyone!”
The NRA, however, is uncompromising when it comes to gun control. Association Chief Executive Wayne LaPierre said in a rare public statement on Thursday that some federal gun control proposals “would make millions of law-abiding Americans less safe and less able to defend themselves and their loved ones”.
Mr. Trump did not say specifically how the NRA’s position could be reconciled with the push for new gun control measures.
On Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he now wants to consider background checks and other action, setting up a potentially pivotal moment when lawmakers return in the fall.
The Republican leader won’t be calling senators back to work early, as some are demanding. But he told a Kentucky radio station that Trump called him Thursday morning and they talked about several ideas. The president, he said, is “anxious to get an outcome and so am I.”
Stakes are high for all sides, but particularly for Mr. Trump and his party. Republicans have long opposed expanding background checks a bill passed by the Democratic-led House is stalled in McConnell’s Senate but they face new pressure to do something after the shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, that left 31 people dead.
The politics of gun control are shifting amid the frequency and toll of mass shootings. Spending to support candidates backing tougher gun control measures mostly Democrats surged in the 2018 midterms, even as campaign spending by the NRA declined.