U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday blamed Democrats for failing to act to strengthen gun restrictions under the Obama administration.
"Just like they don’t want to solve the DACA problem, why didn’t the Democrats pass gun control legislation when they had both the House & Senate during the Obama Administration. Because they didn’t want to, and now they just talk!" Trump tweeted.
Trump's tweet came amid mounting calls from Democrats and activists for tightening gun-control laws, The Hill reported. The calls follow last week’s deadly shooting at a South Florida high school in which 17 people were killed and 14 others injured.
Trump suggested this week that the accused shooter, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, was "mentally disturbed", but has so far remained silent on the issue of gun control.
The president signed a bill last year repealing an Obama-era regulation that made it more difficult for people with mental illnesses to purchase firearms, noted The Hill.
Former President Barack Obama aggressively pushed for new gun restrictions, particularly after the deadly shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in 2012.
While Democrats had control of the Senate at the time, two gun control measures failed to pass in 2013. The first measure was a ban on assault weapons, proposed by California Senator Dianne Feinstein (D). The second was a proposal for universal background checks proposed by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Penn).
Cruz was charged on Thursday with killing 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, north of Miami.
He confessed to being the shooter, telling interrogating officers that he "began shooting students that he saw in the hallways and on school grounds" on Wednesday afternoon.
Cruz also told officers he "brought additional loaded magazines to the school campus and kept them hidden in a backpack until he got on campus to begin his assault."
The FBI on Friday acknowledged it received a tip last month that Cruz had a "desire to kill" and access to guns and could be plotting an attack, but agents failed to investigate.