The White House is now saying that the Parkland, Florida, school shooter should not have had the gun he used to kill 17 people … even though the AR-15 assault-style rifle was obtained legally.
“In this instance, this individual did obtain the weapon through a legal background check,” [principal deputy press secretary Raj] Shah told Fox News during an interview. “You know, we don’t know all the circumstances surrounding it, but obviously he shouldn’t have had that weapon and shouldn’t have been able to do the kinds of things that he did.”
And the day the White House finds a way to retroactively take away a gun and bring back to life the people killed with it once they’ve decided in their infinite wisdom that person should not have had that gun, takes like this will matter. Until then, the way to keep people like Nikolas Cruz from legally obtaining AR-15s is to make it more difficult to legally obtain an AR-15.
But what Donald Trump has done so far in office is make it easier for people to get guns, including people with mental illness. That’s despite his fondness for saying that mental illness, and not guns, is the problem in mass shootings. By the way, while Trump signed that legislation making it easier for mentally ill people to get guns, the White House has refused to release pictures of the signing. It’s almost like they want us to forget about it.