Trump will ‘continue to support the second amendment, that’s not something that he’s backed away from,’ said Sarah Sanders

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

The White House backed away from Donald Trump’s newfound support for gun control on Friday, only hours after the US president met with the National Rifle Association’s top lobbyist in the Oval Office.

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Press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters on Friday morning that Trump told top NRA official Chris Cox “that he’ll continue to support the second amendment, that’s not something that he’s backed away from. The background check system is something that he’s still very much interested in improving.”

She insisted, though, that this support did “not necessarily [mean] universal background checks” and also threw cold water on Trump’s statements that he supported raising the age limit to buy an assault weapon to 21.

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“Conceptually, he still supports raising the age to 21. But he also knows there’s not a lot of broad support for that,” she said.

Although Sanders may have been referring to support for the measure in Congress, a recent NPR/Ipsos poll showed 82% are in favor of raising the legal age to purchase a gun to 21.

Sanders’s remarks come two days after the president held a televised meeting with lawmakers in which he said he supported increased background checks for gun buyers. Those statements seemed to have prompted an emergency White House meeting with the NRA on Thursday night.

Cox tweeted late on Thursday that he had met Trump and the vice-president, Mike Pence, and they “don’t want gun control”. They also “support strong due process”, he added.

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Trump later tweeted a confirmation of an Oval Office meeting with the NRA, saying it was “Good (Great)”, but not elaborating on whether he had changed position.

The president’s remarks on Wednesday, warning lawmakers not to be afraid of the NRA and speaking in favour of a law expanding background checks for gun sales, as well as other gun-control measures, had shocked his allies and opponents alike.

“Some of you people are petrified of the NRA. You can’t be petrified,” Trump had said. His comments suggested that, after a school shooting in Parkland, Florida, left 17 people dead and sparked a youth movement for gun control, he was interested in breaking with the gun-rights group on key issues. Trump and the NRA had already expressed conflicting public views on whether to raise the legal age to purchase certain weapons.

The NRA, which endorsed Trump early and gave more than $30m to back his bid for the White House, has been one of the his staunchest supporters. Trump’s public remarks infuriated some NRA members. They appeared to suggest he was open to gun control policies that the group had long opposed. “Every word of it was a betrayal,” said one NRA member.

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Democrats, who had cheered Trump’s statements on Wednesday, expressed concern that he was now reverting to his previous pro-guns stance.

Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader in the US Senate, issued a statement on Friday reminding the president of his initial response to the Parkland shooting and the ensuing student-led groundswell of protests that demanded that lawmakers restrict gun sales and homed in on the NRA’s political power.

“President Trump should go with his instincts, not the clarion and destructive call of the NRA,” Schumer said. “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.”

Trump had also on Wednesday appeared to endorse aggressive measures to confiscate guns from dangerous people. Conservatives, including Pence, had suggested that it might be possible to petition a court to temporarily remove an unstable person’s firearms.

“Take the guns first, go through due process second,” Trump said.

Gun violence groups had hailed Trump’s comments, with Everytown for Gun Safety releasing a statement saying that “the president today called for sweeping gun violence reform that would meet the moment of public sentiment after the tragedy in Parkland”.