Trump celebrated Obama's call for gun-control legislation following the Sandy Hook shooting
Following the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School that left 28 dead, President Donald Trump - then a private citizen - tweeted something quite uncharacteristic: He said former President Barack Obama spoke "for me and every American," in his remarks at a vigil for the victims.
Obama called for proposing new, stricter gun-control legislation in his speech
"We can't tolerate this anymore," Obama said. "These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must change."
He continued:
And Trump, who by 2012 was deep into the birther-conspiracy and had already endorsed Mitt Romney for president, actually agreed with Obama:
The tweet was first surfaced by Vox's Matthew Iglesias.
On Sunday night, 64-year-old Stephen Paddock fired into a crowd at a music festival in Las Vegas, killing 58 people and injuring hundreds more - the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history. Trump, who called the shooting an "act of pure evil," made no mention of gun-control legislation in a speech he delivered in Las Vegas earlier this week.
The National Rifle Association, however, on Thursday opened the door for supporting the regulation bump stocks, a rifle modification that was used in a mass shooting in Las Vegas earlier this week. And some conservative Republicans, perhaps buoyed by the NRA, signaled on Thursday they may be open to banning the sale of bump stocks, reports Business Insider's Joe Perticone.
"I own a lot of guns, and as a hunter and sportsman, I think that's our right as Americans, but I don't understand the use of this bump stock," Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn told The New York Times. "It seems like it's an obvious area we ought to explore and see if it's something Congress needs to act on."