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White House says now is no time for gun debate

Posted at 2:55 PM, Oct 02, 2017
and last updated 2017-10-02 14:55:52-04

WASHINGTON (AP) — White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders says the day after the deadliest mass shooting in the nation’s history is not the time to renew a debate over gun control.

Sanders was asked Monday during the press briefing that there is a “time and place” for a debate but that is “not the place we’re in at this moment.”

She said President Donald Trump was focused on the victims and stressed that it was a “time to unite the country.”

Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama frequently used mass shootings to call for stricter gun control laws. Trump did not mention firearms during his remarks earlier Monday after a gunman in Las Vegas and killed 58 people and injured at least 515 others.

The Republican president has cast himself as a friend to firearms owners and the powerful National Rifle Association lobby.