February 17, 2018

Trump Finally Addresses a Lack of Gun Control After the Florida Massacre

He blames Democrats, of course.

Oliver Contreras/SIPA USA via AP

President Trump is finally talking about gun control three days after a mass shooting that left 17 people dead and injured at least 14 others at a high school in Parkland, Florida. The president was silent about the issue in a speech at the White House on Thursday, where he offered condolences to the families of the students and teachers murdered and said he would meet with lawmakers and others to discuss school safety. He also visited victims and their families in Broward County on Friday. 

On Saturday evening, Trump tweeted:

In terms of partisan politics, tighter gun regulations have long been much more favored by Democrats than Republicans, but two gun control measures failed to pass in the Senate in 2013, when Democrats held the majority. Last year, Trump revoked an Obama-era regulation that made it harder for people with mental illnesses to purchase guns.

In the wake of the mass shooting this week, outraged students in Florida and elsewhere have demanded that politicians take action on gun control.

DOES IT FEEL LIKE POLITICS IS AT A BREAKING POINT?

Headshot of Editor in Chief of Mother Jones, Clara Jeffery

It sure feels that way to me, and here at Mother Jones, we’ve been thinking a lot about what journalism needs to do differently, and how we can have the biggest impact.

We kept coming back to one word: corruption. Democracy and the rule of law being undermined by those with wealth and power for their own gain. So we're launching an ambitious Mother Jones Corruption Project to do deep, time-intensive reporting on systemic corruption, and asking the MoJo community to help crowdfund it.

We aim to hire, build a team, and give them the time and space needed to understand how we got here and how we might get out. We want to dig into the forces and decisions that have allowed massive conflicts of interest, influence peddling, and win-at-all-costs politics to flourish.

It's unlike anything we've done, and we have seed funding to get started, but we're looking to raise $500,000 from readers by July when we'll be making key budgeting decisions—and the more resources we have by then, the deeper we can dig. If our plan sounds good to you, please help kickstart it with a tax-deductible donation today.

Thanks for reading—whether or not you can pitch in today, or ever, I'm glad you're with us.

Signed by Clara Jeffery

Clara Jeffery, Editor-in-Chief

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our newsletters

Subscribe and we'll send Mother Jones straight to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate

Share your feedback: We’re planning to launch a new version of the comments section. Help us test it.