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Trump Silences Critics With Real Reason He Refused to Raise Min. Gun Age to 21

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When President Donald Trump held a series of conversations about gun control and school safety following the Parkland, Florida school shooting, he caused plenty of consternation among staunch supporters of the Second Amendment with some of his off-the-cuff suggestions.

One suggestion in particular that drew the ire from gun rights-supporting Republicans and libertarians was that of raising the federal minimum age for buying a “long gun” — rifle or shotgun — to 21 years of age, as federal law already mandates for handguns.

Of course, gun rights advocates balked at the idea of essentially banning a constitutional right for certain law-abiding citizens simply because they fell beneath an arbitrary age limit, and organizations like the National Rifle Association made it clear that they wouldn’t support such a move.

But according to The Daily Caller, it would appear based on Trump’s tweets Monday morning that he has backed off significantly from such a proposal, and will now essentially take a wait-and-see attitude in regard to adjusting the minimum age for gun purchases.

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“On 18 to 21 Age Limits, watching court cases and rulings before acting. States are making this decision. Things are moving rapidly on this, but not much political support (to put it mildly),” Trump tweeted.

The reference to “not much political support” most likely was in response to the push-back he has received from the likes of the NRA and other gun rights advocates. The bit about court cases and states making decisions was likely in reference to Florida’s passage of a law which raised the minimum age for long gun purchases, a law immediately challenged in court by the NRA, according to Reuters.

The president is bound to catch flak from the anti-gun liberal media and gun grabbers salivating over the thought of banning some adults from purchasing firearms of any kind, but then again, when doesn’t he catch flak from them?

Do you support Trump waiting for states and courts to address the minimum age for gun purchases?

In essence, Trump announced that he will do what any good president would — allow for the states and courts to sort everything out and then move on from there, as the Constitution intended.

In separate tweets, according to Fox News, Trump addressed some of the other potential solutions his administration is looking at as a means to bolster school safety.

Those recommendations would include support for legislation strengthening the federal background check system, regulations banning bump stock devices that can be used to simulate automatic fire with semi-automatic weapons, and allowing trained teachers to carry a concealed firearm where permitted by state law.

He also seemed to indicate that he would do away with federal regulations mandating schools be “gun free zones” that forbid law-abiding gun owners from being armed on school property but do nothing to dissuade criminals and mass shooters from wreaking carnage against unarmed students and teachers.

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These tweets should ease the minds of some of the president’s critics on the right who may have been worried that he would infringe upon the Second Amendment, something which he repeatedly promised during his campaign for the presidency that he would never do.

Share this story on Facebook to let everyone know that President Trump has backed off of the proposal to raise the federal minimum age for long gun purchases from 18 to 21 years of age.

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Ben Marquis is a writer who identifies as a constitutional conservative/libertarian. He has written about current events and politics for The Western Journal since 2014. His focus is on protecting the First and Second Amendments.
Ben Marquis has written on current events and politics for The Western Journal since 2014. He reads voraciously and writes about the news of the day from a conservative-libertarian perspective. He is an advocate for a more constitutional government and a staunch defender of the Second Amendment, which protects the rest of our natural rights. He lives in Little Rock, Arkansas, with the love of his life as well as four dogs and four cats.
Birthplace
Louisiana
Nationality
American
Education
The School of Life
Location
Little Rock, Arkansas
Languages Spoken
English
Topics of Expertise
Politics




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