On Sunday, in response to the two mass shootings on the same day this past weekend, acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney did his job in removing any responsibility from the president’s rhetoric and instead stated,
“This was a sick person, the person in Dayton was a sick person. No politician is to blame for that. The person who was responsible here are the people who pulled the trigger. We need to figure out how to kind of create less of those kinds of people as a society and not trying to figure out who gets blamed going into the next election.”
He went on to say,
“There’s no benefit here to trying to make this a political issue. This is a social issue.”
So why bring up elections?
And here is the gem.
Mulvaney called the shooters “crazy people” who “should not be able to get guns. Sick people who are intent on doing things like this should not be able to buy guns legally.”
Why is this last statement a gem?
In December 2016, The Social Security Administration finalized President Barack Obama’s rule that required the SSA to identify and report to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) individuals unable to work because of severe mental impairment and can’t manage their own Social Security financial benefits. The thought was that those certain Social Security recipients could pose a danger to themselves or others and should not be able to buy guns.
This regulation was first proposed in the summer of 2015 and finalized it in December 2016, Obama’s last full month in office.
On February 28, 2017, within two months of taking office, Trump repealed that restriction. It was one of the few times he didn’t have the media in the Oval Office so after signing something he could hold it up for all to see.
This was done quietly.
The GOP-controlled Senate had just voted in favor of revoking the resolution, 57-43, and the NRA was ecstatic that the senate voted against what it called “Obama’s unconstitutional gun grab.”
Earlier in February, the GOP led House had also voted to reverses the SSA rule on reporting possibly dangerous individuals to NICS that had been signed by George W. Bush after the Virginia Tech massacre to ensure that individuals who are deemed unqualified to possess guns due to mental health or other reasons could be easily identified through NICS.
After the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, the Obama administration had renewed efforts to strengthen the 2007 law, among other initiatives to tighten gun laws.
During his campaign for presidency Trump would shift any reference to gun control to mental health, which he said is an issue politicians have ignored for too long.
Yet, again, he rescinded the regulation that addressed this.
So while Mulvaney played the put-upon victim of those mean people who cal; out the president for his repeated divisive and hateful statements, he seems to be unaware of his boss’s action.
Or is he?