The White House has a photo of Trump easing gun restrictions for the mentally ill but, oddly, won't release it
In his speech Thursday about Wednesday's mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, President Trump focused on mental illness, after earlier tweeting about the "mentally disturbed" guy who murdered 17 people. Exactly a year earlier, Congress had passed a bill nullifying a rule designed to keep guns out of the hands of people with mental illness, and Trump signed it two weeks later. A White House photographer took photos of Trump signing the bill in a closed-door ceremony, CBS News reported Thursday, but it has declined 12 requests to release the photo to the public.
It's not clear that presumptive Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz would have been among the 75,000 people with diagnosed serious mental illness placed on the federal database blocking gun sales, but Trump and his fellow Republicans are the ones focusing on mental illness after this and other mass shootings. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), for example, was the lead Senate sponsor of the gun and mental illness law Trump signed, and this is what he had to say Thursday. Peter Weber
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
The Salt Path Scandal: an ‘excellent’ documentaryThe Week Recommends Sky film dives back into the literary controversy and reveals a ‘wealth of new details’
-
AI griefbots create a computerized afterlifeUnder the Radar Some say the machines help people mourn; others are skeptical
-
Sudoku hard: December 17, 2025The daily hard sudoku puzzle from The Week
-
Kushner drops Trump hotel project in SerbiaSpeed Read Affinity Partners pulled out of a deal to finance a Trump-branded development in Belgrade
-
Senate votes down ACA subsidies, GOP alternativeSpeed Read The Senate rejected the extension of Affordable Care Act tax credits, guaranteeing a steep rise in health care costs for millions of Americans
-
Abrego García freed from jail on judge’s orderSpeed Read The wrongfully deported man has been released from an ICE detention center
-
Indiana Senate rejects Trump’s gerrymander pushSpeed Read The proposed gerrymander would have likely flipped the state’s two Democratic-held US House seats
-
Democrat files to impeach RFK Jr.Speed Read Rep. Haley Stevens filed articles of impeachment against Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
-
$1M ‘Trump Gold Card’ goes live amid travel rule furorSpeed Read The new gold card visa offers an expedited path to citizenship in exchange for $1 million
-
US seizes oil tanker off VenezuelaSpeed Read The seizure was a significant escalation in the pressure campaign against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro
-
Judge orders release of Ghislaine Maxwell recordsSpeed Read The grand jury records from the 2019 prosecution of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein will be made public
