Donald Trump deviated little from the teleprompter in a brief speech to the nation Monday morning, addressing the twin gun massacres in El Paso and Dayton. He did not repeat his earlier calls for gun legislation tied to immigration reform.
He went heavy on the Old Testament-style, calling the attacks "evil" and the El Paso killer a "wicked man," attacking "precious little children." Like the ones he's locking up in cages. Someone—Ivanka?—got to him and forced him to say the nation "must condemn racism, bigotry and white supremacism. These sinister ideologies must be defeated." Which will last until his next rally when he'll smugly stand back while his mob yells "send her back."
Then he resorted to the tried and true pointless "solutions" we generally get from Republicans. He called for more monitoring of social media and the internet, and called on tech companies to develop tools to "detect mass shooters before they strike." He also travelled back to the 1990s to condemn "gruesome and grisly video games," and called for "cultural change."
Then it was mental health, calling for laws to treat and involuntarily lock up potential killers. This was the only gun safety solution he offered, with "red flag" laws preventing the mentally ill from getting guns. Until white supremacy and racism are considered mental illnesses, that'll do a fat lot of good. Note that one of his first actions in office was to ditch an Obama-era regulation to keep guns out of the hands of severely mentally ill people.
But this is where he reached out for "bipartisanship," calling for "great legislation. […] "It is not up to mentally ill monsters, it is up to us." Yes, mass murderers generally aren't responsible for legislation, so good to know where he'll draw the line. He also suggested tossing out due process for those convicted of mass murder—the death penalty has to be administered "quickly" and "decisively," he said, without the "years of needless delay" our Constitution needlessly demands.
This was Trump trying to appear presidential after he spent the weekend of massacres at his Bedminster property, golfing and crashing a wedding, as he does.
