President Trump will buck the NRA with a Sunday night announcement in which he call for raising the minimum purchase age for long guns to 21.
The current minimum age for long gun purchases is 18.
Trump has been vacillating between various pieces of gun-related legislation since the heinous February 14 attack on Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and Fox News reports he is now ready to announce at least four recommendations. The first of these four is raising the minimum purchase age for rifles to 21 and the second is working with the Department of Justice to ban bump stocks, which were not used in the February 14 attack.
He is expected to urge Congress to pass the “Fix NICS” bill, put forward by Sens. Chris Murphy (D-CT) and John Cornyn (R-TX), and to support the STOP School Violence Act.
President Trump will also advocate for arming teachers. He first called for armed teachers during a February 21, 2018, meeting with survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School attack.
The NRA is opposed to efforts to raise the minimum age for rifle purchases, describing the push as a way of “violating the constitutional rights of young adults between the ages of 18-21.”
Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) signed legislation Friday to raise the minimum age for rifle purchases in his state and the NRA filed suit against the legislation within an hour.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets with AWR Hawkins, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.
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