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| House Speaker Paul Ryan says no to a ban on guns "for law abiding citizens" (AFP Photo/WIN MCNAMEE) |
Washington
(AFP) - Republican leaders rebuffed calls for major changes in US gun laws
Tuesday, blaming the mass shooting at a Florida high school on a "colossal
breakdown" of law enforcement rather than the easy availability of assault
rifles.
Student
survivors of the assault two weeks ago met with members of Congress to press
for curbs on gun sales but found little enthusiasm for legislative action
beyond closing gaps in a national system of background checks.
"Let
me just say we shouldn't be banning guns for law abiding citizens, we should be
focusing on making sure citizens who should not get guns in the first place
don't get those guns," House Speaker Paul Ryan told reporters.
Ryan and
other Republican leaders until now have largely been absent from the debate
that has raged since a troubled 19-year-old armed with a semi-automatic rifle
killed 17 people at a high school in Parkland, Florida.
Ryan blamed
the February 14 rampage at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on the failure
of local authorities to heed numerous warnings about the shooter, Nikolas Cruz,
a former student at the school.
"There
was a colossal breakdown in the system locally," he said, citing lapses by
the FBI and a deputy sheriff accused of failing to act when shooting broke out
at the school.
Ryan's
argument echoed that of US President Donald Trump who asserted Monday that he
would have charged into the school after the shooter, even without a gun.
Trump last
week called for raising the minimum age for gun purchases to 21, but has made
no mention of that since.
Instead, he
has pushed for arming teachers as a first line of defense, an approach favored
by the National Rifle Association but widely criticized by teachers themselves
as impractical and an unreasonable burden on them.
Trump also
has called for building more mental hospitals, a ban on devices known as
"bump stocks" to make a semi-automatic weapon fire more rapidly, and
better background checks to keep guns out of the hands of "sickos."
A
bipartisan bill currently before Congress would step up state and federal
agency reporting to a national database of offenses that would bar an
individual from purchasing a firearm.
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Students
are to return to class Wednesday at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High
School in
Parkland, Florida among them senior Emma Gonzalez who has been
vocal in calling
for gun control (AFP Photo/JOE RAEDLE)
|
Closer to
home, Florida's legislature is weighing whether to raise the minimum age for
gun purchases to 21 as part of a package of measures sponsored by the state's
Republican governor. But a ban on assault rifles is not part of the package.
Gun ban
While some
Democrats favor more comprehensive gun reform, they hold out little hope for it
in a Republican-dominated Congress despite the new momentum created by student
survivors of the Florida shooting, and polls showing overwhelming public
support for stricter gun laws.
Senate
Majority Leader Chuck Schumer was to meet behind closed doors Tuesday with
students from Parkland, where classes will resume on Wednesday, exactly two
weeks after tragedy struck.
The
students also met Monday evening with Representative Steve Scalise, the number
three Republican leader.
Scalise was
shot and nearly killed last June at a congressional baseball practice by a
heavily armed man.
He said the
session with the students was "very emotional."
"Some
of the things that they've been through are similar to some of the things that
I've been through," he said in an interview with CBS.
But they
appear not to have swayed him on the assault rifle ban.
A ban on
AR-15s "is not one of the big discussions here," Scalise said.
"You can
talk about any one weapon and if you ban that weapon, does that mean that
nothing else is going to happen?"
Scalise
later joined Ryan in arguing that existing gun laws needed to be better
enforced, rather than overhauled.
"This
speaks to bigger questions of our culture. What are we teaching our kids? Look
at the violence in our culture," Ryan said. "There are bigger
questions here than a narrow law."
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