In multiple interviews on Monday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo called on Trump to sign an executive order that would declare gun violence a national emergency and impose strictures such as a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines and essentially dare Congress to challenge his constitutional authority to do so. | Scott Heins/Getty Images Cuomo: 'The gun is the trigger' in El Paso, Dayton tragedies

ALBANY — President Donald Trump is pointing to red herrings in criticizing things like video games rather than lax federal gun restrictions in the wake of mass shootings over the weekend in Texas and Ohio that left 30 people dead, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday.

“It’s high-capacity magazines, it’s being able to buy a gun without a background check, so if you’re mentally ill or a criminal, you’re able to buy a gun,” Cuomo said in a radio interview on 1010 WINS. “It is about gun laws that make sense, and the president will not — will not support them, and that’s the threshold issue.


“You’re not going to do this by policing video games,” Cuomo said later in the same interview.

The Democratic governor’s comments came after Trump held a televised address condemning “racism, bigotry and white supremacy,” but notably did not call for passage of new gun control laws, saying “mental illness and hatred pulls the trigger, not the gun.”

Cuomo — who pushed through the SAFE Act in the aftermath of the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school massacre and spent multiple days last week signing into law additional restrictions passed during this year’s legislative session — disputed that notion and said “the gun had the trigger, the gun is the trigger.”

Trump did back "red flag" laws, which allow a judge to prohibit a person from owning or purchasing firearms if that person is deemed a threat to themselves or others. New York passed such a law in February that is scheduled to take effect later this month and allows teachers and other school officials to petition a court for an extreme risk protection order.

In multiple interviews on Monday, Cuomo called on Trump to sign an executive order that would declare gun violence a national emergency and impose strictures such as a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines and essentially dare Congress to challenge his constitutional authority to do so.

The governor also urged Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to put forward a package of gun control bills behind which Democrats can unite.

“Give this nation a real clear alternative between what the Republicans would do and the Democrats would do in this nation,” Cuomo said in an interview on WAMC. “Let’s see if we can have an election that makes a positive difference, and get the Democrats to sign onto one set of proposals, so the public is not confused with this Chinese menu of options.”

Schumer has previously called upon Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to call the chamber back into session to debate a legislative response to the recent spate of shootings.

While the shootings this weekend in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio — as well in Gilroy, Calif., just days prior — have dominated media coverage, gun control activists in New York also noted a recent shooting in Brooklyn that injured 12 and killed one person has received comparably little attention.

“As we continue to fight for common sense solutions we can’t ignore the shootings that get far less attention — the gun violence impacting underserved people of color on a daily basis,” Rebecca Fischer, executive director of New Yorkers Against Gun Violence, said in a statement Monday.