Tricky political challenges...

Trump being thrust into gun debate after Vegas shooting

The president made a straightforward call for unity Monday, but faces tricky political challenges in the days ahead.

By ANNIE KARNI

President Donald Trump’s reaction to the country’s deadliest mass shooting — a somber statement from the Diplomatic Room, a moment of silence on the South Lawn, and a dormant-for-a-day Twitter feed — didn’t make a tragic situation worse.

The president’s words and actions, Democrats and Republicans said, were in line with what any other National Rifle Association-backed president would do. Trump’s call for unity in the face of “an act of pure evil” was accompanied by a day declared by his team to be a no-go zone for political or policy discussions about the nation’s gun laws.

For the first nine months of his presidency, most of the crises Trump has faced have been of his own making. But the shooting, which killed at least 59 and injured more than 500 Las Vegas concert-goers Sunday night, presents a new kind of leadership test.

In the coming days, as the window of a condolences-only response to a domestic tragedy closes, Trump will be forced to navigate a thorny political situation as he reacts to the first mass shooting to unfold on his watch.

Mass shootings in America have become moments of national reckoning on immigration, terrorism and bullying. In this case, where the shooter had no clear motive, the discussion quickly turned to the one subject Trump and his advisers steered clear of in their first 24-hours of response: gun safety measures.

Already, some moderate Republicans have expressed hope that the shooting will push him to come out against a bill pending in the House that would loosen restrictions on purchasing silencers.

The bill, whose supporters say is intended to protect the hearing of hunters, is controversial even among avid supporters of the Second Amendment. Opposing the legislation, some Republicans said, would offer Trump a political opportunity to take a stand on a gun safety issue while costing him little with his base.

“No one really cares about the silencer bill,” said political consultant John Weaver, a former adviser to Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain. “Trump once bragged that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and no one would care. In light of this shooting, he could save lives by putting a stop to this loony silencer bill at no cost politically.”

Trump on Tuesday morning hinted that he might engage in a debate over gun control measures, telling reporters, "We'll be talking about gun laws as time goes by."

Crossing the NRA, however, would be a difficult move for Trump, even on a bill that does not have the support of many gun-toting Second Amendment supporters. Trump was a latecomer to supporting gun rights, but relied heavily on the gun lobby during last year’s election. In 2016, the NRA poured more than $6 million into television ads for Trump’s campaign, even while most major political groups were fleeing from the Republican nominee.

And the president’s son Donald Jr., a hunter, has been a key backer of the silencer bill. “It’s about safety. It’s a health issue, frankly,” the younger Trump said last year in an interview with the founder of SilencerCo, a manufacturer based in Utah.

But the Las Vegas shooter, who rained down bullets from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, was identified quickly in part because local law enforcement could track the sound of his shots. The pending silencer legislation was already losing momentum in Congress on Monday.

Trump in the 1990s and early aughts supported a ban on assault weapons. And in 2012 he praised President Barack Obama’s response to the Sandy Hook school shooting, which included a campaign for stricter gun laws.

That history — despite his staunch backing from the NRA and his commitment to his Second Amendment-supporting base — had some outside advisers with close ties to the White House believing it’s possible Trump may use the silencer bill as an opportunity to make a statement while continuing to paint himself as a strong supporter of the gun rights.

“He’s been for gun control in the past,” one outside GOP consultant said. “Of course he’s going to flip here. Unless you are a passionate defender of the Second Amendment, it doesn’t make sense.”

The White House did not respond to a request for comment about its position on the silencer bill. At her daily briefing on Monday, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders sidestepped any questions about policy.

“Today is more, again, like I said, a day of reflection, a day of mourning, a day of gratefulness for those that were saved,” Sanders said. “I think that there will be certainly time for that policy discussion to take place, but that’s not the place that we’re in at this moment. Certainly, I think there’s a time for that to happen.”

She also brushed off the difference between Trump’s more measured response to the Las Vegas shooting and his gut reaction to the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando last year.

As a candidate, Trump turned directly to Twitter after that shooting, which killed 49 people, where he claimed he was “right on radical Islamic terrorism.” The shooter, Omar Mateen, had ties to the Islamic State terrorist organization.

“There’s a difference between being a candidate and being the president,” Sanders said.

After Monday’s grace period for putting off political talk, the White House will also have to deal with questions about whether it is shying away from deeming the shooting a terrorist attack based on the shooter’s ethnicity.

On Wednesday, a day after visiting hurricane-struck Puerto Rico, Trump will travel to Las Vegas, where he’ll again be tested in a role that does not come naturally to him: that of consoler-in-chief.

If he follows the script of his predecessors, that will mean not just meeting with the first responders, but also privately grieving with the families of the victims.

“There was a grim routine that emerged from these moments,” recalled Josh Earnest, who served as Obama’s press secretary. “That meant typically, a statement the same day, followed by travel to the community, sometimes to speak, but not always. He would privately greet the families of the people who were killed, and at times he went to the hospital privately.”

On Monday, gun safety advocates refrained from criticizing Trump’s reaction, and were hoping to simply push him to act.

“The president should call on Congress to reject silencer legislation and to reject conceal-carry reciprocity legislation,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, the Michael Bloomberg-backed gun control group. “These moments are moments for condolences and leadership. We’ll stay tuned tomorrow.”