President Trump is set to announce recommendations Sunday night on stopping school shootings that will include calls to increase the minimum age for buying long guns to 21, Fox News has learned.
Trump also is expected to support allowing school faculty and staff to be trained to carry and use a weapon, and banning bump stocks — attachments that essentially enable long-barreled guns to fire bullets at a quicker rate.
The recommendations are expected to be announced nearly a month after the mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Fla., in which 17 students and staff were killed.
The president is also expected to support a congressional measure, known as Fix NICS, that helps local officials improve efforts to enter data into the National Instant Criminal Background Check System and the congressional STOP School Violence Act to improve school security and provide some funding for such efforts.
The Republican-controlled House is expected to vote next week on the bipartisan measure.
White House spokesman Raj Shah said early Sunday that the president would not advocate “universal” background checks, but instead would reiterate his support for the bill that promotes better information-sharing. The president also is expected to convene a task force to further study the issue.
“Some (proposals) will be legislative, some will be administrative,” Shah told ABC News’ “This Week.” “And some will be recommendations for states, as well as a task force to study this issue in more depth and make more additional policy recommendations. So it’s going to be consistent with what the president has talked about.”
In the weeks since the massacre, Trump has held listening sessions with lawmakers, survivors of recent school shootings and the families of victims.
He’s also met and spoken with the heads of the powerful National Rifle Association. The NRA on Friday sued Florida over a new gun law signed by Republican Gov. Rick Scott that bans the purchase of firearms by anyone under the age of 21.
During those meetings, Trump advocated arming certain teachers and school staffers, arguing that gun-free schools were “like an invitation for these very sick people” to commit murder.
“If you had a teacher who was adept at firearms, they could end the attack very quickly,” he has said.
During the often free-wheeling conversations, Trump also seemed to voice support for “universal” background checks, which would apply to private gun sales and those at gun shows, instead of just from licensed dealers. He also raised eyebrows by suggesting that law enforcement officials should be able to confiscate guns from those they deem a safety risk even before a court has weighed in.
“Take the guns first, go through due process second,” Trump said.
Sarah Sanders, the White House press secretary, later walked back both suggestions, saying, “Universal means something different to a lot of people.” She said the president wanted to expedite the court process, not circumvent it.
The NICS bill would penalize federal agencies that don’t properly report required records, and reward states that comply by providing them with federal grant preferences.
The bill was written in response to a shooting last November by a gunman whose domestic violence conviction the Air Force failed to report to the National Criminal Information Center database. It has already passed the House, but as part of large bill that allows conceal-carry permits to be valid across state lines.
The White House also has supported a bill that would create a federal grant program to train students, teachers and school officials on how to identify signs of potential violence and intervene early. And, the Justice Department has been moving forward with the push to ban bump stocks.