Trump signals openness after Florida to increasing age to 21, a policy the NRA opposes, fueling suspicions of a split

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Donald Trump and the National Rifle Association (NRA) are each suggesting the other party will switch positions on whether the legal age to buy a rifle should be raised.

Amid fierce debate over gun law reform after 17 people died in a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school in Florida, Trump has repeatedly suggested that he might endorse a law to raise the legal age to buy a rifle to 21.

The NRA opposes that policy, fuelling suggestions that a split may be opening between the president – who told NRA members last year “I will never, ever let you down” – and the powerful group which spent $30m backing his run for the White House.

NRA calls companies' Florida shooting boycott 'political and civic cowardice' Read more

“It should all be at 21,” Trump told state leaders at a meeting on Thursday. “And the NRA will back it.”



The association’s spokeswoman, Dana Loesch, responded on Sunday by saying that Trump’s proposal was still just that and he had not broken with the gun rights group yet.

“I know that people are trying to find daylight between President Trump and 5 million law abiding gun owners all across the United States,” Loesch told ABC’s This Week. “These are just things that he’s discussing right now.”

With Trump and the NRA at odds, Republicans are also expressing differing views on changing the age to legally purchase a rifle.

Florida’s governor, Rick Scott, a longtime gun rights advocate with an A+ rating from the NRA, has also said he would endorse raising the age to purchase a rifle, along with a handful of other gun control compromises.

Scott told Fox News Sunday’s Chris Wallace: “You know, I’m an NRA member. I believe in the second amendment. I believe in the first amendment, all the amendments. I think most members in the NRA agree with me, this is logical. I’m sure there’s going to be some that disagree. But I’m a dad. I’m a grandad and I’m a governor. I want my state to be safe.”

Scott also said he did not agree with Trump’s proposal to arm school teachers, saying: “I believe you’ve got to focus on the people that are well-trained in law enforcement, that are trained to do this.”

Play Video 1:44 'We must immediately harden our schools' says NRA's Wayne LaPierre – video

The Pennsylvania senator Pat Toomey, one of the architects of an attempt at bipartisan gun control legislation after 20 young children and six adults were killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting, said he was “very skeptical” of the effort to raise the age to purchase rifles, since it would overwhelmingly affect law-abiding teenagers and young adults.

“There’s a lot of hunting rifles that are as powerful as an AR-15,” he told NBC’s Meet the Press. The differences between AR-15 rifles and popular hunting rifles are “just cosmetic”.

As students and teachers who survived the shooting in Florida organize protests and a March on Washington to demand gun control laws, the NRA is focusing on blaming the shooting on the failures of local and federal law enforcement.



The Broward County sheriff’s department, whose liberal sheriff has spoken in favor of gun control laws and against the NRA, is under particular pressure.

“This all stems from their dereliction of duty,” Loesch said, pointing to the multiple interactions the gunman had with law enforcement before he carried out his attack.

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Holding law enforcement officials responsible for their failures, she said, was more appropriate “than trying to blame 5 million innocent, law-abiding gun owners all across the country”.

The Broward County sheriff, Scott Israel, told Jake Tapper on CNN’s State of the Union he was “disgusted” and “demoralized” by an armed school resource officer’s failure to enter the high school to confront the shooter during the Florida attack.

He said he was investigating the behavior of three other deputies, who CNN reported had been at the campus but had not entered the school.

“Of course I won’t resign,” he added.

While many survivors are pushing for gun control laws, not all the family members and survivors of the Parkland shooting agree on what should be done to prevent the next such incident.

“We don’t care about gun control right now,” Andrew Pollack, the father of Meadow Pollack, who was killed in the shooting, told Fox News Sunday. “That’s a big issue in the country and you’re not going to get everyone together on it.



“But, we’re going to get everyone together on fixing our schools. The American people, we can get together on school safety.”

