Why Trump's latest position on guns is a small step in the right direction

Donald Trump’s strategy for preventing school shootings includes the lurid policies of arming school teachers with guns and “hardening” schools against attack. But while the president backed away from raising age limits for buying some guns on Sunday, the president is also endorsing some policies with scientific evidence behind them – a small sign of progress in America’s deadlocked gun control debate.

As part of his new school safety plan, Trump called on states to pass laws creating “extreme risk protection orders”, a new kind of gun control measure that has been gathering increasing support from Republicans since the Florida shooting.

Five years ago, after the Newtown massacre at Sandy Hook elementary school, mental health experts and gun violence researchers came together to discuss what it would mean to prevent mass shootings in a data-driven way, and without stigmatizing people with mental illness.

One of their major proposals was the creation of this new kind of restraining order, which would give law enforcement officials the authority to temporarily confiscate firearms from people at risk of harming themselves or other people.

Source: theguardian