President Donald Trump expressed a commitment Sunday, hours after the latest deadly mass shooting, to work with a divided Congress to “stop the menace of mass attacks.” He said any measures must satisfy the competing goals of protecting public safety and the constitutional right to gun ownership and seemed to cast fresh doubt on the merits of instituting more thorough background checks for gun purchases.

Trump spoke shortly after the death toll in Saturday’s rampage in West Texas rose to seven as authorities worked to understand why a man pulled over for a traffic infraction opened fire on state troopers and fled. He shot more than 20 people before he was killed by police. A motive has not been released.

The president said it would be “wonderful to say” he’d work to “eliminate” mass shootings, but acknowledged that that was unlikely.

“We want to substantially reduce the violent crime,” Trump said at the top of a briefing about Hurricane Dorian at Federal Emergency Management Agency headquarters in Washington.

Trump’s commitment to gun control has been in doubt ever since 17 students and adults were killed in a shooting at a Parkland, Florida, high school on Valentine’s Day in 2018. Trump came out in favor of stronger background checks after the shooting, but then quickly retreated under pressure from the National Rifle Association, the politically powerfully gun owners’ lobby that strongly backed his bid to become president.

•Excerpted from a VOA/AP report.

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