Getty Trump to meet with NRA about banning gun sales for terror watch list

Donald Trump thrust himself to the fore of the gun debate on Wednesday, announcing that he'll meet with the National Rifle Association to discuss banning people on the terror and no-fly watch lists from purchasing firearms.

The announcement came in a tweet in the morning, roughly 90 minutes before Senate Democrats launched a filibuster to prompt action on the same issue, which is regaining attention after the Orlando massacre in which the gunman slaughtered 49 people and injured 53 others inside an LGBT nightclub.


“I will be meeting with the NRA, who has endorsed me, about not allowing people on the terrorist watch list, or the no fly list, to buy guns,” Trump tweeted.



His unprompted announcement pressures the gun lobby to help reach a compromise on the contentious proposal in the wake of the worst mass shooting in American history. While the gunman, Omar Mateen, was not on a terror watch list at the time of the shooting, he had previously been investigated by the FBI on concerns he had been radicalized.

The NRA endorsed Trump last month at its annual meeting in Louisville, Kentucky, marking the earliest the group’s lobbying arm has backed a presidential candidate.



“The people that head up the NRA are great people,” Trump told supporters Wednesday afternoon during a rally in Atlanta. “And they love this country, and I told you we’re going to protect that Second Amendment, because it is under siege.”



Though Trump's proactive stance on the terror watch list issue is new, he has previously expressed his support of such a ban. Following November’s terrorist attacks in Paris in which 130 people died, Trump backed a Democratic-pushed measure to bar people on the watch list from purchasing guns.



“If somebody is on a watch list and an enemy of state and we know it’s an enemy of state, I would keep them away, absolutely,” Trump told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos in November.



It's not known whether Trump will push for a form of the ban that will be palatable to Democrats, but his general stance aligns with President Barack Obama.

“The president does believe that the notion of preventing people who are on the no-fly list from buying a gun is a pretty common sense proposition,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters, though he notably deflected questions about Trump’s NRA meeting. “It is the kind of thing that even people who have profound political differences should be able to agree on,”



Trump’s position appeared to signal a shift from the NRA, which had dismissed such bans just one day ago as “ineffective” or “unconstitutional,” if not both.

“Restrictions like bans on gun purchases by people on ‘watch lists’ are ineffective, unconstitutional, or both,” the NRA tweeted Tuesday.

By Wednesday, however, the NRA tweeted that it was “happy to meet” Trump to discuss the issue, though it later made clear that the announcement did not represent a change.



“Our position is no guns for terrorists—period," the association wrote. “Due process & right to self-defense for law-abiding Americans.”

NRA Institute for Legislative Action executive director Chris W. Cox reiterated as much in a statement released by the association, expressing willingness to meet with Trump but emphasizing that its position remains unchanged.



“The NRA believes that terrorists should not be allowed to purchase or possess firearms, period. Anyone on a terror watchlist who tries to buy a gun should be thoroughly investigated by the FBI and the sale delayed while the investigation is ongoing,” Cox said in the statement.



“If an investigation uncovers evidence of terrorist activity or involvement, the government should be allowed to immediately go to court, block the sale, and arrest the terrorist,” he continued. “At the same time, due process protections should be put in place that allow law-abiding Americans who are wrongly put on a watchlist to be removed.”

After the Orlando shootings, Senate Democrats have re-upped pressure on Republicans on their proposal that would bar people on federal terror watch lists from purchasing firearms. But GOP senators have largely aligned behind a counter-proposal from Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas), who has said his own plan would accomplish much of the same goals as Democrats, yet better protect due process for people who mistakenly end up on federal terror lists.



Under Cornyn’s proposal, the attorney general would be able to delay the gun purchase by a person who is on the terror watch list for up to 72 hours and file an emergency petition in court to ban the purchase altogether. A judge would then have the final call on whether there’s probable cause that the person trying to buy a gun will commit terrorism.

Both proposals failed to advance in December, although Cornyn’s plan got more votes in the GOP-controlled chamber.

Senate Democrats launched a filibuster Wednesday in effort to pressure Republicans to move on legislation to deny suspected terrorists from buying guns and require universal background checks.

“I’m going to remain on this floor until we get some signal, some sign that we can come together on these two measures, that we can get a path forward on addressing this epidemic in a meaningful, bipartisan way,” said Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, who in a statement Sunday accused Congress of becoming “complicit in these murders by its total, unconscionable deafening silence.”

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, a frequent Trump critic who has said he will not support the Republican nominee in November and even encouraged fellow Republicans to un-endorse him, told CNN he agreed with Trump’s decision to meet with the NRA, adding that the real estate mogul should “stay on this path.”



“This idea that gun control will make it safe, I don’t buy. But let’s look at the issue of no-fly lists and terrorist watch lists,” Graham said. “I really do believe most Americans feel that if you can’t get on a plane because you’re such a risk, you probably shouldn’t have a gun. I think Mr. Trump is smart to see if we can sit down and find a way forward that will allow people to be denied a gun but also the chance to say the government got it wrong when it came to me being a terrorist.”

In the House, Democrats are pushing so-called “No Fly, No Buy” legislation to prevent people on terror watch lists from purchasing guns. During a Wednesday news conference convened by House Democrats, New York Rep. Steve Israel suggested Trump’s NRA meeting will be irrelevant.

“If Donald Trump decides today that he supports ‘No Fly, No Buy,’ it will be just the latest disagreement that House Republicans say they have with him. It is irrelevant,” he said.

“If con-man Don can convince the NRA to move forward on this, God bless him,” added New York Rep. Joe Crowley. “But again, it just goes to show the power of the NRA, that their presidential nominee will go on hand and knee begging for them to give them a pass on this issue so that it can trickle down to all the other Republican members of the House. It’s ludicrous. It is crazy.”



The NRA in November maintained that it “does not want terrorists or dangerous people to have firearms,” arguing that “any suggestion otherwise is offensive and wrong.”



“The NRA’s only objective is to ensure that Americans who are wrongly on the list are afforded their constitutional right to due process,” Jennifer Baker, the NRA-ILA’s public affairs director, said in a statement at the time. “It is appalling that anti-gun politicians are exploiting the Paris terrorist attacks to push their gun-control agenda and distract from President Obama’s failed foreign policy.”



Bianca Padró Ocasio and Louis Nelson contributed to this report.