In the wake of any high-profile shooting, there is going to be a push for gun control. President Joe Biden was notorious for calling for an assault weapon ban the second a report came in of some shooting, which was amusing to watch when it came out that the bad guy used a handgun.
But President Trump is different, to say the least. Instead, he's more interested in keeping promises.
See, he promised to defend the Second Amendment if elected. His time in office hasn't been long, but he's already done more for gun rights than any other president in my lifetime, if not in history.
Yet a mass shooting, or what is being painted as a mass shooting, could be enough to change that for some people.
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President Trump said Thursday a shooting at Florida State University that killed two people was "terrible" and a "shame," but suggested he's unlikely to back any new gun control measures — saying he's a "big advocate of the Second Amendment."
Asked by reporters if he planned on looking at stricter gun laws in the wake of the shooting, Mr. Trump said, "These things are terrible. But the gun doesn't do the shooting, the people do."
"As far as legislation is concerned, this has been going on for a long time," Mr. Trump added. "I have an obligation to protect the Second Amendment. I ran on the Second Amendment, among many other things, and I will always protect the Second Amendment."
That's exactly what gun rights supporters want to hear.
The truth of the matter is that FSU wasn't going to be stopped by gun control measures. The alleged killer took his mother's gun — his mother, an active duty police officer — and a shotgun and rolled up to kill people at a school he apparently didn't even attend.
What law is going to stop that kind of thing?
Even if one would, we still have the right to keep and bear arms. Trump, as noted a couple of times now, vowed to defend the Second Amendment. The mantra during this term has been "promises made, promises kept," and he's keeping this one, too.
The shooting was terrible. It was a shame. There's no issue with acknowledging that, but journalists thought they could get Trump to say something in support of gun control, which he did a few times during his first term.
This time, he's learned. He knows not to even suggest gun control might be an option.
Instead, he's laying it out in language anyone can understand.
That won't stop some from introducing new gun control bills and trying to leverage what happened in Tallahassee to justify them.
What it does mean is that even if they can get them through Congress, there's no chance of them being signed. There's even less chance of a presidential veto being overridden by this Congress, either.
That doesn't mean some people won't be trying, though.
They'll use any corpse they can as a soapbox to push their anti-Second Amendment agenda. The fresher, the better in their ghoulish minds. It's just nice to know that it'll get them nothing.
