“On 18 to 21 Age Limits, watching court cases and rulings before acting,” Donald Trump tweeted, after weeks of voicing support for raising the age limit. He also said there was “not much political support (to put it mildly)” for the policy.
Recent polls of US adults have found that more than two-thirds of respondents favor raising the legal age to buy guns.
The president had clashed with the NRA over the issue of raising age limits to purchase rifles such as the one used in the attack on in Florida in February, in which 17 people were killed.
“It should all be at 21,” Trump said in late February. “And the NRA will back it.”
But the NRA, which spent more than $30m to support Trump’s campaign, stood firm, filing a federal lawsuit on Friday challenging new age restrictions in Florida.
The White House deputy press secretary Raj Shah an age-limit rise would be included. But the president then backed off, assigning the question of whether age limits should be raised to a new federal commission on school safety, to be chaired by education secretary Betsy DeVos.
Survivors of the Florida shooting criticised Trump’s decision.
“What President Trump showed when he said he wanted to raise the age to 21 was bipartisanship and the need to work together on this and save some lives,” one of the students, David Hogg, told CNN.
“But the other thing he showed after that is that he’s no better than the other politicians because he called out other GOP members and said, ‘You’re owned by the NRA and that’s why you don’t want to take action.’ But then he stepped back down from where he was.
“I ask him why? Show us that you’re better than these other politicians and that you aren’t owned by the NRA and that you actually want to take action. Those proposals were great but proposals without action remain proposals.”
On Monday, DeVos told NBC “everything is on the table”.
The White House remains committed to other proposals the president has endorsed. Existing justice department funding will be used to help train teachers and other school personnel to use firearms in an attempt to “harden” schools against mass shootings.
The president tweeted on Monday: “If schools are mandated to be gun free zones, violence and danger are given an open invitation to enter. Cowards will only go where there is no deterrent!”
The administration will work with states to provide “rigorous firearms training” to “qualified volunteer school personnel”, Andrew Bremberg, director of the president’s domestic policy council, told reporters on Sunday.
Homeland security officials will also work with states to develop a public awareness campaign to prevent school shootings, based on the “see something, say something” campaign launched after 9/11, which encourages members of the public to report potential signs of terrorism.
No figures were given for what such plans would cost.
The White House also endorsed bipartisan legislation that would improve the federal background check system for gun sales by providing incentives for agencies to comply with the current law. It did not endorse a bill that would actually close some of the loopholes in the background check system, despite Trump’s words of praise for such a course in a public meeting with Democrats in late February.
Trump did endorse two policy proposals with strong support from advocates for gun violence prevention.
The president called on states to pass extreme risk protection orders, which would provide law enforcement and family members with a legal way to petition a court to temporarily remove an unstable person’s guns, and block them from buying new ones. A senior administration official emphasised said this would include respect for due process, while giving law enforcement the ability to temporarily take guns from extremely high-risk people.
The White House also endorsed the bipartisan Stop School Violence Act and asked Congress to provide funding to support evidence-based school violence prevention programs. This legislation is endorsed by Sandy Hook Promise, a nonprofit founded by family members after the 2012 shooting in Connecticut in which 20 young children and six adults were killed. The group has been working with school districts to implement its “Know the Signs” programs.
Sandy Hook Promise praised Trump’s support for extreme risk protection orders, improving background checks and the Stop School Violence Act.
“The president’s plan shows that there is room for common ground,” the organization said. “We do not agree on everything. We absolutely do not need more guns in schools or to fortress our schools like prisons.”
White House officials attempted to frame Trump’s proposal as a bold step. “We’ve had to talk about this topic way too much over the years,” DeVos said on Sunday night. “There’s been a lot of talk in the past, but very little action.”
Pressed to explain why a new commission was an example of action rather than more talk, officials had few answers. Asked about a timeline for the DeVos commission, they said it would work “quickly”.
At a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday, Trump mocked the idea of presidential commissions. He said: “We can’t just keep setting up blue ribbon committees with your wife and your wife and your husband, and they meet and they have a meal and they talk.”
