2A/GOP/GUNS/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Donald Trump asked Sen. Pat Toomey, a Pennsylvania Republican who’s worked on a bill to strengthen background checks for gun purchases, whether he left a proposal to raise the gun purchasing age to 21 out of his measure because senators are ‘afraid of the NRA.’
In an exchange during a meeting of a bipartisan group of senators at the White House, Trump asked Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Toomey if their background check bill they authored in the aftermath of a shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012 included a provision that would have raised the age at which individuals could purchase rifles from 18 to 21. Toomey said it did not.
‘You know why? Because you’re afraid of the NRA,’ Trump said.
The Manchin-Toomey bill is different from the more limited ‘Fix NICS’ bill, from Sens. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican and the second ranking GOP member in the chamber, and Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, which offers financial incentives for state and local governments to report information to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.”
-Jeremy Diamond and Lauren Fox, “Trump tells senators ‘You’re afraid of the NRA’,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, Feb. 28, 2018 05:48pm