By Tracy Wilkinson

Tribune Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The White House said Monday that President Donald Trump was “supportive” of efforts to improve the system of background checks for people who seek to buy guns in the United States.

In a statement, the White House said Trump spoke to Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) on Friday to discuss a bipartisan bill Cornyn is co-sponsoring that would tighten federal background checks. However, the statement did not expressly say that Trump supported the bill.

The statement follows an emotional outcry from hundreds of students who survived Wednesday’s massacre at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school in Parkland, Fla. Seventeen students and staff members were killed by a 19-year-old who once attended the school.

The students are demanding government action to curb gun violence and planning protest marches for next month.

The White House said Trump will hold a “listening session” with an unspecified group of students later this week.

But in a long series of tweets since the shooting, Trump himself has not addressed possible gun-control actions, except to say once that Democrats should be blamed for not doing anything when they had control of Congress. His views have often contradicted White House statements.

In the past, before his presidential candidacy and since his inauguration, Trump has varied widely on his positions on gun control and public access to firearms.