Last February, Trump signed a bill making it easier for people with mental illness to buy guns

[bucolic_frolic]

It did not attract a ton of attention at the time (nothing does these days) but about a year ago on February 28, 2017, Congress passed and Donald Trump signed a law revoking an Obama-era regulatory initiative that made it harder for people with mental illness to buy a gun.

Yet despite this effort to roll back even a very modest effort to restrain the ability of seriously incapacitated people from obtaining deadly weapons, this morning Trump tweeted that there were “so many signs that the Florida shooter was mentally disturbed,” implying that someone should have done something to report him.

So many signs that the Florida shooter was mentally disturbed, even expelled from school for bad and erratic behavior. Neighbors and classmates knew he was a big problem. Must always report such instances to authorities, again and again!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 15, 2018

But it’s Trump’s party — and Trump himself — who have consistently prevented the federal government from doing anything about this kind of situation. The Obama-era gun regulation wouldn’t have had a massive impact on gun violence in the US since it’s estimated that it would only affect about 75,000 people. And disability rights groups had their own objections to the bill so some liberal groups joined with the National Rifle Association in urging Trump to reverse it.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/15/17016036/trump-guns-mental-illness

[yudee]

1. hmmmm

this aint cool

[MichMary]

2. Snopes:

https://www.snopes.com/congress-gun-legal-mental/

WHAT'S TRUE
Congress passed a law repealing a measure that was originally intended to make it easier to prohibit the sale of firearms to people deemed “mentally defective” by requiring the Social Security Administration to provide disability benefit information to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.

WHAT'S FALSE
The repeal does not change any actual firearm regulations; there have been (and still are) laws on the books that prohibit the sale of guns to some groups of people based on mental illness.