Chris Cox, chief lobbyist for the Institute for Legislative Action, wrote on Twitter that the NRA and Trump want to keep schools safe and to "keep guns away from dangerous people." | Susan Walsh/AP Photo White House pushes Trump's commitment to gun rights after president meets top NRA lobbyist

President Donald Trump remains committed to defending Americans’ Second Amendment rights, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a brief exchange with reporters Friday morning that followed hours after the president met with NRA leaders.

Sanders Friday morning emphasis on gun rights marked another volley in the back and forth between Trump, who has voiced support for certain gun control measures in the wake of a mass shooting at a Florida high school last month, and Second Amendment advocates, among them the NRA and members of his own party, who have continued to oppose such steps.


Trump’s embrace of certain gun control measures has been met with raised eyebrows both from liberals skeptical of the president’s sincerity and from conservatives confused by his divergence from the NRA, which endorsed him during the 2016 and has been among his most consistent backers.

At a White House meeting on Wednesday, Trump chided GOP lawmakers for being “afraid of the NRA” and undercut gun rights advocates by suggesting that the government ought to skirt due process rules take guns away those suspected of posing a public safety risk.

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But since that meeting with lawmakers, rhetoric from the White House has erred closer to that of Second Amendment advocates. Trump wrote on Twitter Thursday night that he had a "good (Great) meeting in the Oval Office tonight with the NRA!"

Chris Cox, chief lobbyist for the Institute for Legislative Action, which is the NRA's lobbying arm, wrote on Twitter that the NRA and Trump want to keep schools safe and to "keep guns away from dangerous people."

"I had a great meeting tonight with @realDonaldTrump & @VP. We all want safe schools, mental health reform and to keep guns away from dangerous people. POTUS & VPOTUS support the Second Amendment, support strong due process and don’t want gun control. #NRA #MAGA" Cox wrote on Twitter.

Sanders on Friday reiterated that the president continues to be a strong advocate of the right to bear arms.

“He'll continue to support the Second Amendment, that's not something that he's backed away from,” Sanders told reporters when asked if the president had made any promises to the NRA during his White House meeting on Thursday with the group’s leadership. “The background check system is something that he's still very much interested in improving.”

The press secretary said the president would “not necessarily” support universal background checks for all gun purchases but does support legislation sponsored by Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) that would strengthen the background check system. She said Trump still supports raising the age at which certain guns can be purchased to 21, but conceded that “there's not a lot of broad support for that.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), in a statement emailed to reporters Friday, urged the president to stick to the gun control positions he outlined on Wednesday.

"President Trump should go with his instincts, not the clarion and destructive call of the NRA. He knows instinctively that this is the right thing to do both substantively, because it will save tens of thousands of lives, and politically because over three quarters of the American people support it," Schumer said in his statement. "If he continues to bow to his right wing ringmasters, we will get nothing done on guns and his presidency will continue to fail."

