--- title: Las Vegas: White House Calls Gun Control Talks "Premature" description: Sarah Huckabee Sanders said it was too soon to begin a gun control debate, less than 24 hours after the deadliest shooting in U.S. history. canonical: https://time.com/4965797/white-house-gun-control-debate-las-vegas/ author: Alana Abramson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-10-02T19:17:02.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:54:05.696Z article:section: Politics og:title: White House Says Now Is not the time for gun control talks og:description: "Now is the time to unite as a country" og:url: https://time.com/4965797/white-house-gun-control-debate-las-vegas/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta69b10283df2d7ad/6988e0304ee2621f8430f3ce/sarah-sanders-vegas-shooting-briefing.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4928 og:image:height: 2772 og:image:alt: sarah-sanders-vegas-shooting-briefing og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: White House Says Now Is not the time for gun control talks twitter:description: "Now is the time to unite as a country" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta69b10283df2d7ad/6988e0304ee2621f8430f3ce/sarah-sanders-vegas-shooting-briefing.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # White House: It Is 'Premature' to Talk About Gun Control Laws After Las Vegas > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ## Video: Heading to Puerto Rico, Trump Speaks on Las Vegas Shooting [Watch (HLS stream): Heading to Puerto Rico, Trump Speaks on Las Vegas Shooting](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/ZBvXcYAW.m3u8) (0:27)  _Published 2017-10-03. Heading to Puerto Rico, Trump speaks on Las Vegas shooting_  by [Alana Abramson](https://time.com/author/alana-abramson/)  ## Alana Abramson Oct 2, 2017 7:17 PM UTC  White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders speaks during the White House briefing on Oct. 2, 2017 in Washington, DC. President Donald Trump sent his "warmest condolences" to the victims and families of a shooting at a concert in Las Vegas which has killed at least 50 people. White House spokesman Sarah Sanders said separately that the president had been briefed on "the horrific tragedy in Las Vegas" on Sunday night. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders speaks during the White House briefing on Oct. 2, 2017 in Washington, DC. President Donald Trump sent his "warmest condolences" to the victims and families of a shooting at a concert in Las Vegas which has killed at least 50 people. White House spokesman Sarah Sanders said separately that the president had been briefed on "the horrific tragedy in Las Vegas" on Sunday night. MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images  by [Alana Abramson](https://time.com/author/alana-abramson/)  ## Alana Abramson Oct 2, 2017 7:17 PM UTC White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Monday it was too soon to begin a debate on gun control, less than 24 hours after the deadliest shooting in U.S. history, although she reiterated President Trump’s support for the Second Amendment. “There’s a time and place for a political debate but now is the time to unite as a country,” Sanders told reporters during the daily briefing Monday, which lasted fifteen minutes. “There’s currently an open and ongoing law enforcement investigation;, a motive has yet to be determined and it would be premature for us to discuss policy when we don’t know all the facts or what took place last night.” Sanders’ comments come one day after a 64-year-old gunman opened fire onto a crowd at the Route 91 Harvest Festival from the 32nd floor of the nearby Mandalay Bay hotel and casino. Authorities said Monday morning that at least 58 people had been killed and at least 500 had been injured, although those numbers are fluid. The White House held a moment of silence after the daily briefing. She did not rule out the idea that the President could lead a bipartisan solution for gun control, but cautioned that legislators should not work on a bill that would impose restrictions on firearms but fail to stop shootings, using Chicago as an example of such a situation. “They have the strictest gun laws in the country. That certainly hasn’t helped there,” she said of Chicago. “I think when the time comes for those conversations to take place I think we need to look at things that may actually have that real impact.” When President Trump gave remarks from the White House on Monday, he praised law enforcement officers who responded to the attack and offered condolences to the families of the victims, but did not mention anything about gun control. But several Democratic members of Congress have said this shooting highlights the need for more restrictions on buying weapons and machine guns. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi wrote a letter to House Speaker Paul Ryan urging him to create a Select Committee on Gun Violence to determine a solution to stop shootings like the one that happened Sunday night. “Our words of comfort to the victims of the Las Vegas Massacre will ring hollow unless we take long overdue action to ensure that no other family is forced to endure such an unimaginable tragedy,” she wrote. Congress could vote on a bill that would make it [easier to buy silencers](http://time.com/4965056/las-vegas-shooting-gun-silencer-bill/) as soon as this week. > [](https://twitter.com/NancyPelosi/status/914907736395182081) When asked if she could delineate any view of the President’s on gun control, Sanders simply reiterated that he supports the Second Amendment, which states the right to bear arms. “I don’t have anything further at this point,” Sanders said. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4965797/white-house-gun-control-debate-las-vegas/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4965797/white-house-gun-control-debate-las-vegas/"},"headline":"White House: It Is 'Premature' to Talk About Gun Control Laws After Las Vegas","datePublished":"2017-10-02T19:17:02.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:54:05.696Z","description":"\"There's a time and place for a political debate but now is the time to unite as a country\"","url":"https://time.com/4965797/white-house-gun-control-debate-las-vegas/","keywords":["White House","onetime","las vegas shooting"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta69b10283df2d7ad/6988e0304ee2621f8430f3ce/sarah-sanders-vegas-shooting-briefing.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alana Abramson","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/alana-abramson/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta69b10283df2d7ad/6988e0304ee2621f8430f3ce/sarah-sanders-vegas-shooting-briefing.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"sarah-sanders-vegas-shooting-briefing","caption":"Sarah Huckabee Sanders White House briefing Las Vegas","creditText":"MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/white-house/","name":"White House"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4965797/white-house-gun-control-debate-las-vegas/","name":"White House: It Is 'Premature' to Talk About Gun Control Laws After Las Vegas"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Heading to Puerto Rico, Trump Speaks on Las Vegas Shooting","description":"Heading to Puerto Rico, Trump speaks on Las Vegas shooting","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/ZBvXcYAW/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2017-10-03T14:16:07.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/ZBvXcYAW.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/4965797/white-house-gun-control-debate-las-vegas/","duration":"PT27S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/4965797/white-house-gun-control-debate-las-vegas/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```