White House: Now not time to debate gun control
President Trump’s top spokesperson said the aftermath of the mass shooting in Las Vegas is not the time to restart a debate over the nation’s gun laws.
“There’s a time and place for a political debate, but now is the time to unite as a country,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters on Monday.
Pressed about whether it’s appropriate to discuss new gun laws, Sanders said “it would be premature for us to discuss policy” when all the facts of Sunday night’s shooting are not yet known.
{mosads}“I think there will be certainly time for that political discussion to take place,” she said. “But that’s not the place that we are in at the moment.”
Trump on Monday broke with his predecessor, Barack Obama, who used mass shootings to call for tougher gun laws. The president did not mention gun laws or gun rights during his response to the shooting.
Sunday’s massacre at a country music festival was the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, leaving at least 59 dead and more than 520 injured.
Democrats have used it to renewed the debate over new gun-control laws. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who represents families of victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre, called on Congress to “get off its ass and do something” about gun violence.
Trump has previously said he is committed to defending gun rights. He told the National Rifle Association in April, “You have a true friend and champion in the White House.”
But the president has brought up gun laws in connection with past incidents of mass violence.
“Do you notice we are not having a gun debate right now? That’s because they used knives and a truck!” he tweeted in June after a terror attack in London.
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