>
Article snippet: Could the logjam that has thwarted previous attempts at legislative action after mass shootings be about to break? The question moved front and center Wednesday, after the White House hosted an extraordinary event with people affected by school shootings, including last week’s tragedy in Florida. Survivors from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., where 17 people were killed on February 14, addressed MORE directly in raw and emotional terms. They were joined by parents bereaved in 2012’s Sandy Hook atrocity and others affected by gun violence, including local high school students from the District of Columbia. “I don’t understand how I can go into a store and buy a weapon of war,” one survivor from Parkland, Sam Zeif, told the president. Whereas most White House events — during previous administrations as well as this one — are run in a tight, scripted manner, Wednesday’s was unusually free-wheeling. Attendees voiced very disparate recommendations, from banning certain kinds of weapons to arming teachers. The president did not control the proceedings with a heavy hand, mostly facilitating people who wanted to speak. Trump insisted action would be taken, however. “It’s not going to be [just] talk, as it has been,” he said. “We’re going to get it done.” But will he? And what does he even intend to enact? The politics of the gun issue are famously complicated, and Trump’s words and actions since the Florida shooting have left observers on all... Link to the full article to read more