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Former president Donald Trump delivered a full-throated defense of gun rights at the NRA convention, rejected efforts at tighter gun laws and argued that if the United States can spend $40 billion on Ukraine, it can harden security at schools.

Trump pressed ahead with his appearance at the convention days after a school massacre in Uvalde that claimed the lives of 19 children and two teachers. Other Republican politicians decided against participating, such as Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Tex.), or provided prerecorded messages, such as Gov. Greg Abbott (R). Trump took a tacit swipe at them.

“Unlike some I didn’t disappoint you by not showing up,” he said at the start of his remarks.

Trump read the names of each victim as an electronic bell tolled, and called for a moment of silence. “Each precious young soul that was taken is an incomprehensible loss — literally not comprehensible — stolen from us by a malice that no words can describe,” Trump said, adding that the shooter was “eternally damned to burn in the fires of hell.”

Trump said the nation must change its approach to mental health, bemoaned the problem of broken families and called for schools to have “a single point of entry.”

Amid criticism and questions about the police response in Uvalde, Trump called for rigorous training on active shooter protocols, and added, “It took too long.”

“If the United States has $40 billion to send to Ukraine, we should be able to do whatever it takes to keep our children safe at home,” Trump said.

In arguing for gun rights — and against tighter restrictions — he said that “the existence of evil in our world is not a reason to disarm law-abiding citizens — the existence of evil is one of the very best reasons to arm law-abiding citizens.”

President Biden has landed for the weekend in Wilmington, Del., as he prepares for yet another visit to a grieving community rocked by a harrowing gun massacre.

This week, Biden returned from his first trip as president to Asia, where he highlighted his administration’s tough-on-China approach by unveiling a new trade framework intended to counter Beijing’s influence — while meeting with a coalition of four countries meant to serve as a counterweight to China. But the major headline of the trip ended up being Biden’s vow — similar to one he had made before — that the United States would defend Taiwan if it came under attack by China.

But that foreign trip was bookended by a pair of mass shootings — last week, at a supermarket in Buffalo, and this week, at an elementary school in Uvalde, Tex. The consoler in chief delivered a message of grief and anger after returning to the White House on Tuesday evening, and he is now preparing to visit the small South Texas community on Sunday.

Not to be forgotten, however, is the executive order, signed by Biden on Wednesday, meant to prevent and punish police misconduct, coming on the second anniversary of the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police. The order, which came after more sweeping legislative attempts failed, had been months in the making.

Texas Democratic gubernatorial nominee Beto O’Rourke delivered an impassioned speech to a crowd of protesters outside the National Rifle Association’s annual meeting Friday, pressing them to take urgent action to stem the country’s tide of mass shootings.

O’Rourke’s remarks came two days after the Democrat interrupted a news conference by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and other officials, telling them it was long past time to act to prevent massacres like the one at Robb Elementary School.

“The time for us to have stopped Uvalde was right after Sandy Hook,” O’Rourke said to cheers from the sprawling crowd, referring to the 2012 mass shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn.

He cited other mass shootings that have taken place throughout America, then implored the protesters: “The time for us to stop the next mass shooting in this country is right now, right here.”

O’Rourke delivered his appeal in personal terms, noting that he met this week with the family of one of the slain Uvalde students. He asked those assembled at the event not to forget the victims. And he pledged to politically defeat politicians who have been “purchased” by the NRA, urging audience members to “get in their faces” before any more children are killed in mass shootings.

“To those that are attending the NRA convention across the street: You are not our enemies, we are not yours,” O’Rourke said. Protesters are extending their hand, “open and unarmed,” to work together to make sure “this no longer happens in this country,” he added.

Two National Rifle Association board members shrugged off calls to cancel Friday’s convention in response to the Uvalde, Tex., school shooting that killed 19 students and two teachers, The Post’s Isaac Arnsdorf reports from Houston.

“These events are scheduled years in advance, tens of thousands of people made travel plans and reservations,” said David A. Keene, a board member and former president of the NRA.

Keene dismissed a call from Houston’s mayor to delay the conference until after the victims’ funerals, describing it as an unrealistic plan for an event expected to draw 70,000 to 80,000 people.

Fellow board member and former congressman Bob Barr (R-Ga.) said the criticism made it more important for the NRA to go ahead with the program.

“If we backed away every time there was controversy, we wouldn’t be worthy of anybody’s support,” he said.

Keene blamed politics for a rash of cancellations among scheduled speakers, including Gov. Greg Abbott (R) — who will provide a prerecorded video instead while visiting Uvalde.

“Politicians are acting on the day’s news,” Keene said. “Abbott is doing exactly what he should be doing. That’s the way things are.”

You can read more from Isaac at the NRA convention here in The Post’s live update file devoted to the aftermath of the school shootings in Texas.

A small bipartisan group of senators is talking about a possible compromise on legislation aiming to keep guns out of the hands of potential mass murderers.

But Democratic proposals to ban assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines are not on the table. Instead, negotiators are eyeing modest expansions of background checks and “red flag” laws that would allow authorities to keep guns away from people found to constitute a potential threat.

The Post’s Mahlia Posey has pulled together video of Republican lawmakers making clear what they won’t accept and trying to explain why.

As noted here earlier, President Biden appears to have settled on a plan to cancel $10,000 in student debt per borrower, while limiting the relief to individuals who make less than $150,000 per year or couples who make less than $300,000 — a framework that was developed in the face of long-standing pressure from his left

The Post’s Aaron Blake says the approach isn’t likely to satisfy many liberals who pushed for a much bolder approach with a much higher price tag. Aaron writes:

Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sens. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) were among those pushing for forgiving $50,000 or even all student loans. Nor will this proposal be met with support from Republicans, who have criticized the idea as a handout to a group of Americans already better off than most, since those with college loan debt went to college and thus generally have higher incomes.

However, the plan on which Biden has apparently settled does seem as though it meets with significant support among the American people, Aaron notes.

You can read his full piece, in which he explores polling on the subject, here.

Texas’s two senators — Ted Cruz and John Cornyn — have similar positions on gun legislation. Both have received “A+” ratings from the National Rifle Association’s political arm. Both have opposed efforts to tighten restrictions on firearms, including the banning of assault rifles and the limiting of high-capacity magazine sales.

However, as The Post’s Felicia Sonmez, Mike DeBonis and Amy B Wang report, in the wake of Tuesday’s mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Tex. — the second-deadliest school shooting in American history — Cornyn and Cruz have struck markedly different tones while adopting contrasting roles.

Our colleagues write:

Cornyn, 70, the state’s senior senator, had been scheduled to speak at Friday’s NRA annual meeting in Houston. He pulled out ahead of the shooting for personal reasons requiring him to be in Washington, a spokesperson said.

Cruz, 51, is going ahead with plans to speak at the event Friday. In an interview with a local CBS reporter in Uvalde this week, Cruz said he will attend because Democrats and the press are “trying to demonize law-abiding gun owners” and “demonize the NRA.”

You can read the full story here.

More than a week after voters went to the polls, incumbent Rep. Kurt Schrader fell to Jamie McLeod-Skinner in the Democratic primary for Oregon’s 5th Congressional District.

The Post’s Eugene Scott reports that election results in the race were delayed after blurry bar codes were rejected by vote-counting machines. Here are the details:

McLeod-Skinner, a lawyer and natural resource consultant, will go on to face Republican Lori Chavez-Deremer in the general election.

Schrader was endorsed by President Biden for an eighth term while McLeod-Skinner, who ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2018 as the Democratic nominee in Oregon’s 2nd District, had the backing of several of the party’s more-liberal voices, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).

The race was one of the country’s most closely watched Democratic primaries given that it was the first to earn Biden’s endorsement — but also because the president felt the need to back an incumbent with an uneven track record for supporting his agenda.

You can read Eugene’s full story here.