Last week, Parkland, Florida, became the latest front in the national struggle with gun violence when an expelled student returned to their former high school and opened fire, killing 17 people and wounding many more.
The president has yet to make any remarkable or significant moves towards the implementation of common sense gun control. Now, the Daily Beast has a report about why that might be the case.
The president visited his Florida Mar-a-Lago resort over the long President’s Day weekend, stopping at a Parkland area hospital treating victims of the shooting on Friday before making his way to his property.
While at Mar-a-Lago, surrounded by those whose positions blend the public and private aspects to the president’s life, Trump situated himself to receive even more counsel about what to do about those calling for gun control in the wake of the Parkland shooting.
According to three sources speaking to the Daily Beast, while there, Donald Trump Jr. — the president’s eldest son and one of those leading the family business while his father is in the White House — was advising the president over the long weekend against making even the slightest concession to those calling for common sense gun control in the wake of the Parkland shooting.
His reasoning was that, besides any consideration about the merit of the idea of unrestricted gun rights itself, the move would not go over well with his base, which includes the NRA.
One of the options for the president is to reimpose a ban on assault weapons like the one used by the Parkland shooter and other mass shooters throughout recent history. This ban was in place for a period of about ten years ending in 2004, when Republicans in power allowed it to expire.
In the years since, assault weapons have been used in an array of mass shootings, including, besides the Parkland incident, ones in Orlando, Las Vegas, and elsewhere.
Even in the face of this, Trump Jr. thinks that it would be a terrible idea for the president to even make an attempt to stem the flow of blood from mass shootings carried out with assault weapons or any other kind of weapon, for that matter.
Trump’s inaction on the issue of the proliferation of guns in the United States is ironic considering the fact that he promised in his inaugural address to put an end to the “American carnage.”
To be clear, he’s taking advice on gun control from a guy who has infamously been photographed gleeful over having taken down big game in Africa. How many Americans would both be interested in killing elephants and have the means to go overseas and do so?
Even though the answer to that question is no doubt a small number, this disconnected guy is advising the president of the United States on gun policy.
According to the Daily Beast, he advised his dad against even the semblance of gun control literally while watching grieving students from the Parkland high school affected by the shooting on television.
Some of these students have become vocal advocates in favor of common sense gun control after the shooting that hit so close to home for them.
Student Rose Gonzalez, for instance, delivered an impassioned and widely circulated speech calling for gun control at a rally in Fort Lauderdale last Saturday.
Featured Image via Win McNamee/ Getty Images
