This is a common pattern with President Trump. Propose one idea as being the right tack to take, watch and see who objects, then back off and change your mind. This time, it regards the age restriction on gun purchases.

If you remember, the president hosted a meeting at the White House a week ago that laid out his initial take on “what a president should do RIGHT NOW.” The reaction by conservatives and more mainstream Republicans was… shock.

Just got this from a senior GOP aide: "The President is like a blindfolded Yosemite Sam, shooting from the hip. It's clear he doesn't know the details and it's unclear what he wants."

— Stephen Gutowski (@StephenGutowski) February 28, 2018

So, if I'm understanding this meeting right, Trump supports adding universal background checks to Fix NICS but not concealed carry reciprocity. If that's true it's a big win for democrats and gun control activists.

— Stephen Gutowski (@StephenGutowski) February 28, 2018

My new life goal is to be half as happy as @SenFeinstein when Trump said she should add assault weapons ban to Manchin-Toomey pic.twitter.com/O1cJ4ckJI7

— Anna Massoglia (@annalecta) February 28, 2018

But none other than MSNBC’s Chris Hayes came away with the most honest point from the February 28th meeting.

Everyone realizes that literally nothing said in this meeting matters at all right?

— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) February 28, 2018

Coupled with the strong negative reactions from pretty much everyone who cares about the Constitution…

this @BenSasse statement on the White House meeting on guns is an on the record, profanity-free version of what many GOP aides have been e-mailing/texting in the last few hours: pic.twitter.com/g2r5RnltVV

— Phil Mattingly (@Phil_Mattingly) February 28, 2018

… anyone who has monitored how this president works knew it was only a matter of time before some things had to give.

And it apparently has.

White House vows to help arm teachers, backs off call to raise minimum age to buy some guns https://t.co/I9373jq3W8

— Washington Post (@washingtonpost) March 11, 2018

The White House on Sunday vowed to help provide “rigorous firearms training” to some schoolteachers and formally endorsed a bill to tighten the federal background checks system, but it backed off President Trump’s earlier call to raise the minimum age to purchase some guns to 21 years old from 18 years old.

Responding directly to last month’s gun massacre at a Florida high school, the administration rolled out several policy proposals that focus largely on mental health and school safety initiatives. The idea of arming some teachers has been controversial and has drawn sharp opposition from the National Education Association, the country’s largest teachers lobby, among other groups. Many of the student survivors have urged Washington to toughen restrictions on gun purchases, but such measures are fiercely opposed by the National Rifle Association, and the Trump plan does not include substantial changes to gun laws.

Rather, the president is establishing a Federal Commission on School Safety, to be chaired by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, that will explore possible solutions, such as the age requirement for purchases, officials said.

DeVos characterized the administration’s efforts as “a pragmatic plan to dramatically increase school safety.”

“We are committed to working quickly because there’s no time to waste,” she said on a conference call with reporters on Sunday evening. Invoking past mass school shootings, she continued, “No student, no family, no teacher and no school should have to live the horror of Parkland or Sandy Hook or Columbine again.”

While formal proposals from the White House have yet to be actually published on its website, it looks like the administration is going to redirect the conversation into arming teachers, something that the teachers’ unions hate, but that rank-and-file teachers have embraced in several circumstances. In Ohio, a gun training course offered to school employees had to be capped when 300 people signed up. In Washington state, the Toppenish School District has not armed teachers, but administrators, since 2014 – including the superintendent.

Superintendent Cerna and his team each went through 40 hours of training, including classroom work on firearm safety and maintenance. They train twice a month at the range and have to qualify using standards which he says are more stringent than many police departments. It’s considered part of their professional development.

Cerna acknowledges some districts don’t take training seriously enough. Like in Colorado, where he says they only have two firearm safety sessions per year.

Beyond the training, he’s very selective about who carries a firearm.

“With my administrators, not all of them are carrying, because some of them I wouldn’t let carry. You’ve gotta trust somebody that has your back.”

Toppenish School District now has 19 armed administrators, but all but the superintendent are anonymous for security purposes. Their example is now pushing neighboring school districts to consider their options as well. For those who object to having a gun in the classroom, why not allow a principal to be armed as an alternative?

The White House’s new stance seems to agree with these ideas.

The administration will start working with states to provide “rigorous firearms training” to teachers and other school personnel who volunteer to be armed, said Andrew Bremberg, director of the White House Domestic Policy Council. The White House has not proposed offering states new funding for this training.

The NRA supports the idea of allowing armed teachers in schools. Bremberg said the administration is backing two pieces of legislation: A bipartisan bill by Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) that is designed to improve the accuracy and effectiveness of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System; and the STOP School Violence Act, which would authorize state-based grants to implement violence prevention training for teachers and students.

So what will actually come to pass? Who knows. But this is a good reminder for all of us to never take the first words out of this president’s mouth to be his final opinion on any subject.