Washington Post editorial board calls Trump too cowardly to pass background checks in scathing editorial

The Washington Post just published a scathing editorial saying that President Donald Trump is far too cowardly to fight for gun safety laws or any kind of gun reform.

For a brief few days, while Trump was on vacation, he was willing to say that background checks needed to be tightened. But once he was on the phone with the National Rifle Association, everything changed. It isn't the first time. When Trump promised action after the Parkland, Florida massacre he said to the faces of parents who'd just lost their children. The next day he reneged. Now Americans are back at step one, where the next shooting is around the corner and even if police are on scene to take the shooter down in less than 60 seconds, people will still die.

"If the president is expecting a Republican Senate to send him a gun-control bill without his strong, public backing, he will be waiting a long time," The Post wrote Tuesday. "This is the same party that blocked minimal gun-safety reforms after a shooter murdered 26 children and staffers at Sandy Hook Elementary School — and after every other gun-related atrocity since."

The noted that other countries have mental-health problems, evil people on the internet, violent video games and other causes that anti-gun safety activists say is a greater problem. The one thing the U.S. doesn't share with other countries is a strict regulation of guns. The Post described our country as "saturated" with them.

"The country has background checks, but they don’t apply to many firearms sales and transfers at gun shows and other places," The Post went on to explain. "As for the background checks that are conducted, federal authorities only have so much time to complete them before gun sales go through, meaning that dangerous people get weapons merely because the clock runs out."

The paper argued that almost no one really believes that this is a reasonable situation to be in. If the president enjoys the 51 percent approval rating he quoted Zogby giving him, 90 percent of Americans support stricter background checks. That means an overwhelming majority of Trump's own supporters want him to act.

"Strong majorities, including among those key to GOP victory, favor other gun reforms, too," The Post went on. "A package of essential policy changes would include a “red flag” law that allows judges to confiscate weapons from those at risk of committing imminent harm, an extension of the time federal authorities have to conduct background checks, and a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.

The piece closed with the conclusion: "Yet even these bare-minimum reforms seem, once again, out of reach — thanks in part to a president who apparently lacks the courage to champion measures he recognizes as necessary."

The conversation is likely to begin again in the next few months when there is another mass shooting and more Americans are forced to give their lives to protect the rights for others to have AR-15s.

Read the full editorial at The Washington Post.