Republican congressman calls on Paul Ryan to 'immediately' move on gun control reform

He says that Mr Ryan should move fast now that President Donald Trump has endorsed several measures

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A Florida Republican is urging House Speaker Paul Ryan to move "immediately" on gun control reforms after President Donald Trump endorsed several potential approaches.

Rep Carlos Curbelo tweeted at Mr Ryan after Mr Trump said that he would like to see the legal age for obtaining a long gun raised to 21 from 18, and for strengthening the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), including through greater mental health screenings.

With Mr Trump's "support, @SpeakerRyan should immediately allow the House to consider common sense gun safety proposals @RepCurbelo has been calling for - strengthening NICS, including mental health in background checks, raising purchasing age of long guns to 21, banning bump stocks," a tweet from Mr Curbelo's account reads.

The call for gun control reforms comes just eight days after a 19-year-old man wielding an AR-15 killed 17 people at a Florida high school, including 14 students. That shooting, at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, has led to an intense debate over how to stop the gun violence epidemic in America, with student survivors of the massacre leading the charge and pledging that their school will be the last of the United States' mass shootings.

Mr Curbelo has told news outlets in the aftermath of that shooting that he thinks Congress needs to hold debates on gun control legislation to try and find a way to solve the crisis.

Congress should debate "reasonable, common-sense gun safety laws" that "protect rights for responsible citizens, people who are responsible gun owners, but will prevent those who want to do harm to innocent people form obtaining these weapons," Mr Curbelo said on ABC's This Week.

Mr Trump has announced that he will instruct his Justice Department to ban so-called bump-stock weapons accessories that allow semi-automatic weapons to fire at a near-automatic rate. He has also conducted meetings with student survivors of mass shootings, and the parents of children who have been killed in those attacks.

He has said that he would like to see teachers with concealed carry permits, and has floated the idea of giving those educators bonuses for packing heat at work. Mr Trump has also said that he would like to increase security at schools through modifications to the infrastructure that could keep gunmen out of classrooms when future shootings occur.