Hundreds of thousands of protesters nationwide took to the streets Saturday to demand stricter gun laws ― but you wouldn’t know it looking at President Donald Trump’s Twitter feed.
It’s been over 24 hours since students, parents and supporters of the #NeverAgain movement to end school shootings showed up in Washington, D.C., and dozens of other cities across the country for March For Our Lives.
Dozens of politicians responded to the massive demonstration Saturday, but Trump ― a man who often shows little restraint on Twitter when responding to events such as terror attacks and the Golden Globes ― refrained from publicly weighing in on the march.
As March For Our Lives demonstrators rallied in the nation’s capital, begging for lawmakers to take action against gun violence, Trump hung out at his posh golf resort in West Palm Beach, Florida. He tweeted several times during the Saturday march, and again on Sunday, but focused only on other topics, including a U.S.-Mexico border wall and his legal team assigned to deal with the Russia probe.
A White House statement issued on Saturday addressed the March For Our Lives, though it wasn’t specifically attributed to Trump.
“We applaud the many courageous young Americans exercising their First Amendment rights today,” according to the statement. It also noted the Trump administration’s move to ban bump stocks, a device used by Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock that allowed his semi-automatic rifle to fire hundreds of rounds into a crowd of concertgoers.
Many gun control advocates consider a potential bump stock ban to be only a tiny step in the right direction regarding necessary gun reform legislation in the wake of the Feb. 14 massacre of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
In the weeks after the Parkland shooting, the president also supported raising the minimum age required to purchase an assault weapon from 18 to 21. He has since cooled on the idea after meeting with representatives from the National Rifle Association, the largest pro-gun lobbying group in the world. Instead, Trump’s focused more on “hardening” schools by arming some teachers ― a move #NeverAgain activists have largely condemned.