After each mass shooting, Trump promises to take action, to get tough, etc. Then he hears from the NRA and passes the ball to Congress. In the Senate, Mitch McConnell sends any restrictions on guns to the trash heap.
James Hohman writes in the Power Post:
Following his now well-established pattern after mass shootings, Trump continues to back away from his initial support for “strong background checks.” When the bodies are still being buried – whether after Las Vegas, Parkland, Fla., or El Paso – the president proclaims that he will take meaningful action to address the epidemic of gun violence. But as public attention wanes, and he faces pushback from the National Rifle Association, Trump returns to saying the problem that needs to be addressed is actually mental health.
“It’s the people that pull the trigger, not the gun that pulls the trigger,” Trump said last night on the tarmac in New Jersey, as he prepared to fly back to Washington after 10 days at the golf club he owns there. “We have a very, very big mental health problem, and Congress is working on various things and I will be looking at it. … They have bipartisan committees working on background checks and various other things. And we’ll see. I don’t want people to forget that this is a mental health problem. I don’t want them to forget that because it is. It’s a mental health problem.”
There have always been lots of violent people in the world, but they did not always have such easy access to weapons of war and massive magazines. Mass shootings did not used to happen with such regularity, and they did not used to be so deadly.
Asked last night if he’ll support universal background checks, Trump was curt and noncommittal. “I’m not saying anything,” he replied. “I’m saying Congress is going to be reporting back to me with ideas. And they’ll come in from Democrats and Republicans. And I’ll look at it very strongly. But just remember, we already have a lot of background checks, okay? Thank you.”
If mental health is the cause of gun violence, why did Trump roll back an Obama-era regulation that prevented people with a history of mental illness from buying guns? What is this administration doing to help people with mental health issues?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Well, in one sense, it IS a mental health problem. It’s a problem with the mental health of Trump and McConnell.
Sigh. Bob, I have a lot of respect for you, which is why I really wish you in particular would not call Trump mentally ill. As I’ve said before, it’s a stigma against actual mentally ill people to associate Trump (or McConnell) with them. You are essentially equating mental illness with evil.
And the fact remains, as I said below, not messing with guns is the most rational possible thing Trump could do – it’s certainly not evidence of a mental illness. Evil, yes. Mentally ill, no.
Sorry, Dienne. You are absolutely right about this. My apologies!!!
But I would say that he has narcissism….which IS listed as a mental disorder in the DSM-5.
Narcissism is an Axis II personality disorder. Those are distinct from major mental illnesses, which is why they are diagnosed separately.
I do think that it’s pretty clear that Trump is starting to suffer from dementia. As clear as it was with Reagan in his second term.
Trump may be many things, most of them evil, but he is not stupid, at least not in a political sense. He has said that he could kill someone and his base would still vote for him – that’s probably true. The one thing he can’t do, however, is mess with guns. His base would turn on him en masse and he wouldn’t stand a chance in 2020. Pretty much anything he does is forgivable (if not worthy of celebration) among his base. Not that.
Trump knows how to pander to his base. He’s a smooth operator, if nothing else. He is all about politically expedient moves. He is a shrewd, malevolent narcissist.
Also it is important to remember that the same Russian money that propped out Trump’s bankrupt businesses and laundered their money through their Trump real estate purchases also used the NRA as the ideal conduit to launder Putin’s efforts to financially support Trump’s election by funneling money via the NRA.
Remember the NRA spent $30 million to elect Trump and that money was NOT from the average gun owner — it was laundered Russian money.
Of course that is why the 2 rabid right wing FEC commissioners have specifically forbidden the FEC to look closely at the NRA’s dark money. I mean, why would you want the FEC to investigate the huge political donations from Russians when you adore the president and want to enable him regardless of whether he is Putin’s puppet.
Even most Trump voters want sensible gun control but no doubt another influx of Russian supported propaganda will convince those who love Trump more than their own children that limiting anyone — including mentally ill people — from buying as many assault weapons as they want is worth a bunch of children’ lives.
Or maybe they won’t. Maybe I have a higher opinion than you of Trump voters and I think they love their children more than Trump. At least I suspect many of them do.
It isn’t the voters but the people who Trump is terrified of offending — the Russians — who guide everything he does. No doubt he got some marching orders.
If Trump said he believed in sensible gun control only a small portion of his base would turn on him. But 100% of his Russian handlers would.
^^I tried to post a link that didn’t post, but it is an article from The Hill, on August 16, 2019
Headline:
“Wyden blasts FEC Republicans for blocking probe into NRA over possible Russia donations”
These are astute political observations. I have two things to add.
First, my children at school are less gun-oriented than they have been in the past. I base this on my annual question I ask to introduce the discussion of a round of revolutions in world history. I always ask my students what it would take before they would feel so hostile to the government as to take up arms against their own rulers. Usually I get about ten kids who refer to the second ammendment in some way. This year, only two. Like other statistical samples, this is probably less than informative.
The other comment I offer is to amend your short list of things that trump dares not do politically if he wants to keep his job. Some of his base stays with him because he gives them justices like Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, and because he packs lower courts with socially and fiscally conservative justices. He would lose their support if he quit playing to their desires.
There are about 185 million Americans, who own at least one firearm. Trump cannot alienate people who support the 2d amendment.
This is one fact that both Trump supporters and Trump opponents can agree on.
It is a right wing lie that all of the 185 million Americans who own at least one firearm want to make sure it is very easy for mentally ill Americans to own assault weapons capable of mowing down dozens of children in less than a minute.
In fact, the majority of NRA members support what the NRA opposes.
Most Americans who own guns believe in having some restrictions on ownership. It is a right wing lie that 100% of those gun owners — or even the majority of them — want mentally ill Americans to purchase as many assault weapons and bump stocks as they want and is a lie that they would be up in arms if Trump had no changed the law — as he did as one of his first actions as President — to make sure mentally ill Americans could purchase as many assault rifles as they wanted.
Trump isn’t doing that to please the 185 million Americans who might own a gun but clearly do not want assault weapons to be easily available to mow down their own children. Trump is doing that because the Putin-run NRA wants it.
I would expect that a majority of those people do not own high mag capacity arms. There is a difference.
“It’s the people that pull the trigger, not the gun that pulls the trigger,” “We have a very, very big mental health problem…” straight from the NRA playbook/propagnda mill. Translation: Do nothing, keep doing nothing, must not offend the NRA and USA gun fetishists, especially in the states with lax, weak gun laws. Inaction today, inaction tomorrow, inaction forever: as regards gun control, sensible gun laws, banning or outlawing semi-automatic assault rifles and high capacity magazines. It’s like being hit in the head with a sledge hammer after each and every massacre. You would have thought that something rational would have been done after the Sandy Hook massacre but obviously no massacre is heinous enough, tragic enough for this benighted country.
I saw a news report last night that a white supremacist was arrested with an arsenal after declaring his intent to shoot up some building. Without good gun laws, will he be able to be restrained from owning lethal weapons for the rest of his life? Surely we can agree that someone who would post his intent to kill should never own so much as a cap pistol for the rest of his life.
Looks like three(3) mass shootings were stopped by the authorities.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/18/us/three-potential-attacks-foiled/index.html?utm_source=CNN+Five+Things&utm_campaign=22b83bca26-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_08_19_08_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_6da287d761-22b83bca26-82695477
Thanks for the link. Disturbing. Glad they were foiled. These people are obviously dangerous foreign influences.
“We have a very big mental health problem… Congress and I will be looking at it.” Marvelous opportunity for self-analysis and introspection.
No, Trump is not “smart,” and he is not “a smooth operator.” He started with enormous advantages. He failed and failed. He manipulated, coerced, cheated, lied, and intimidated his way through life and has spent it acting on impulse and then frantically trying to clean up the mess, often through extremely shady practices involving extremely shady associates. Sometimes quite stupid people have enormous impact because they start with great resources, because of the Chauncy Gardiner Effect, or because of a combination of the two. Mussolini was a bright man and a monster. Hitler was just a thug. Meyer Lansky was a bright man and a monster. Gotti was just a thug. Trump is a thug. Period.
I remember how, for years, the press ran stories about how John Gotti was some sort of secret, evil genius because he kept evading conviction and lived lavishly, thumbing his nose a the authorities. There was a lot of debate about how bright he was. Then the tapes of the secret recordings of Gotti were released, and these provided a definitive answer. The man couldn’t articulate a complete, grammatical sentence. He couldn’t think straight. He just bullied and cursed his way through life. Pure ID. And he had the resources to buy police and lawyers.
When Trump refers to the art of the deal, he means bullying the other guy until he gives up.
Exactly
As a person who believes in the organic nature of history, I see trump as more of a product of poor soil rather than a person who is either evil or good. No good versus evil here. Just the frailty of humanity masquerading as a big tough guy. Robespierre on the guillotine. Napoleon looking down the Prussian cannons. Hitler in the bunker.
History is stronger than life. Hitler never would have thought more people would admire Bonhoffer than himself. It is up to us, the historians to tell the truth. The ages will take care of things if their stories are true. Sooner or later there will be a truth.
amen to that!
Unfortunately, too many people are hurt in the meantime.
“It’s inexcusable that Republican commissioners would block an investigation into whether Russian money was funneled through the National Rifle Association to help President Trump,” Wyden continued, according to Newsweek. “The blatant partisanship is appalling, undermines our democracy and leaves us vulnerable to continued interference in 2020.”
I kept trying to give the headline and link and WordPress would not let it go through. I settled for a paragraph.
Trump equivocates on gun control.
Let’s not equivocate on instability, incompetence or inhumanity.
Let’s not ignore, downplay or normalize this mess.
emphatically agreed