Contrary to the popular demand that the conversation be put front and center, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders confirmed on Monday afternoon that the Trump administration simply does not want to talk about gun control in the immediate wake of Sunday night’s mass shooting in Las Vegas in which at least 58 people were killed.
At an afternoon press briefing, repeatedly pressed on the issue, Huckabee Sanders called it “premature” to have a debate about the politics of guns.
“There’s a time and a place to debate, but now is the time to unite as a country,” she said.
That message is diametrically opposite to what gun control advocates and some Democratic lawmakers were saying on Monday. “Tragedies like Las Vegas have happened too many times,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) in a tweet. “We need to have the conversation about how to stop gun violence. We need it NOW.”
Author and activist Naomi Klein put the White House’s position in the context of a broader pattern of dodging and denial that is well-worn in right-wing political circles:
Meanwhile, Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat who represents the state of Connecticut where the 2012 mass killing of schoolchildren in the town of Sandy Hook took place, called on Congress to “get off its ass and do something” on the issue of gun violence and mass shootings.
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