Trump on gun laws is all talk, no action and more deaths Shootings in Fresno, California, on Sunday and in Duncan, Oklahoma, on Monday. The dying doesn't stop because the president decides leading would be politically inconvenient: Our view

The Editorial Board | USA TODAY

More than 100 days have passed since mass shootings at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, and a nightlife area in Dayton, Ohio, left 31 dead over a span of hours on a weekend. Amid the shock and horror that followed, President Donald Trump started out saying all the right things.

He promised meaningful proposals like extending background checks and promoting "red flag" laws that allow judges to temporarily take guns from people deemed a danger to themselves or others. "Politically," he said, "good, bad, or indifferent. I don't care."

Spoiler alert: He does care about the politics.

Latest death toll in shootings

After pushback from gun rights supporters, Trump put the issue on ice. Meanwhile, the killings continue unabated. Five students were shot, two of them killed, at a high school in Santa Clarita, California, last Thursday. Ten people were shot, four of them fatally, at a football-viewing party in Fresno on Sunday. And three were shot and killed Monday at a Walmart in Duncan, Oklahoma.

OPPOSING VIEW: More ‘gun safety’ laws aren’t the answer to 'gun violence'

For a while after Dayton and El Paso, it looked like this time might be different. At the urging of Trump's daughter Ivanka, the White House began assembling the promised proposals and opened negotiations on Capitol Hill for new legislation.

Expanding background checks was overwhelmingly popular. As if to tragically underscore the need for reform, a gunman who failed a background check at a firearm store bypassed the system by buying an AR-style rifle through a private sale. He opened fire with the weapon on Aug. 31 while driving through West Texas, killing seven people before being shot to death by police.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., had refused to hold a vote on a House bill providing universal background checks passed in February. But a weaker, bipartisan alternative in the Senate would extend background checks to all commercial sales, including those on the internet and at gun shows. "If the president took a position on a bill ... I’d be happy to put it on the floor," McConnell said.

Then came the inevitable pushback from the National Rifle Association, which had pumped $30 million into Trump's 2016 election campaign. NRA chief Wayne LaPierre lobbied Trump six times against proposing new gun control measures, according to The Washington Post.

By late September, Trump had gone silent on the issue, and The Post reported that the president was abandoning plans to fight gun violence because he was worried it might cost him votes within his base.

Same on Ukraine, vaping

Trump isn't the first politician to sacrifice principle for the sake of holding onto power. But the chasm between what Trump says he cares about and his lack of follow-through grows more vast — and deadly — with each passing week.

He claimed Ukraine mattered, that he was concerned about the nation's endemic corruption. In reality, he worried more about Joe Biden's presidential candidacy and held up nearly $400 million in military aid to get political dirt on the Democrat. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, a Trump donor, is said to have put it plainly: Trump doesn't "give a s--- about Ukraine."

The same might be said about Trump's view of the teenage vaping epidemic. "People are dying with vaping," he said this fall, citing the first lady's urgent advocacy. The president was poised to ban the flavored electronic cigarettes that fuel teen usage. But once again, worried more about losing votes, Trump postponed plans for a policy rollout.

The dying doesn't stop just because Trump decides it's inconvenient to act. Ukrainian soldiers were killed in combat as he withheld military aid. Dozens of vaping-related deaths occurred as he was debating whether to curb the sale of flavored e-cigarettes. And then there's the never ending string of mass shootings.

Federal action wouldn't prevent all such tragedies, but it would stop some of them. To not even try is disgraceful.

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