Trump Backs Beefing Up FBI Database on Gun Buyers

Bipartisan bill is in the works
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Feb 19, 2018 11:29 AM CST
WH: Trump Backs Better Background Checks on Guns
President Trump is seen leaving the White House on Friday for a trip to his private Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.   (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

President Trump offered support Monday for an effort to strengthen the federal gun background check system. Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the president spoke on Friday to GOP Sen. John Cornyn about a bipartisan bill designed to strengthen the FBI database of prohibited gun buyers, the AP reports. "While discussions are ongoing and revisions are being considered, the president is supportive of efforts to improve the federal background check system," Sanders said in a statement. Surviving students of last week's Florida shooting are ramping up pressure on Trump and lawmakers to toughen the nation's gun laws. The bipartisan background check legislation would be aimed at ensuring that federal agencies and states accurately report relevant criminal information to the FBI.

The measure was introduced after the Air Force failed to report the criminal history of the gunman who slaughtered more than two dozen people at a Texas church. Trump has been a strong supporter of gun rights and the NRA, and he has focused his comments on mental health, rather than guns, but last year he signed a resolution blocking an Obama-era rule designed to keep guns out of the hands of certain mentally ill people. In a marathon series of furious weekend tweets from Mar-a-Lago in Florida, Trump vented about Russia, raging at the FBI for what he perceived to be a fixation on the Russia probe at the cost of failing to deter the attack on a Florida high school.

(More President Trump stories.)

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