THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

Certainly the public wants to hear that kind of talk so soon after the Orlando massacre. And coming from the Republican presidential nominee who will meet with the blood soaked NRA leadership surely should boost the Great Orange Plague after a bad week.

Donald J. Trump seemed to modulate his position on Second Amendment protections on Wednesday, saying in a Twitter message that he would be meeting with the National Rifle Association to discuss preventing individuals on the terrorist watch list from purchasing guns.

“I will be meeting with the N.R.A., who has endorsed me, about not allowing people on the terrorist watch list, or the no-fly list, to buy guns,” Mr. Trump wrote Wednesday morning. The N.R.A. said it would be happy to meet with Mr. Trump in a Twitter post of its own.

His message, which came after 49 people were shot and killed on Sunday at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., seemed to echo a measure that congressional Democrats were planning to take up this week that would seek to prevent individuals on the government’s terror watchlist from purchasing guns.

In a speech on Monday in New Hampshire, Mr. Trump addressed the Orlando massacre in more fiery terms, dismaying some of his own supporters as he called for an expansion of his proposal to bar Muslim immigrants. Mr. Trump advocated barring immigrants from any nation with “a proven history of terrorism,” and said that Muslim-Americans could be held accountable for domestic acts of terrorism if they failed to turn in their neighbors.

While campaigning, Mr. Trump also frequently talks of how more guns — not less — could have helped prevent mass shootings like the one in San Bernardino, Calif., last December that killed 14 people and wounded 22. Mr. Trump contends that if people had guns to shoot back, the killers might not have tried the attack or would have injured fewer people. The killings were carried out by a couple who were inspired by terrorists abroad.

During a Republican debate in January, when asked about the San Bernardino attack, Mr. Trump explicitly said then that he did not believe there were any circumstances in which the nation should limit the sale of guns, of any kind.

Mr. Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

No doubt a good many soothing words will come from this meeting, but both parties are well versed in the art of saying nothing to no one. Trump will return to his previous position when it is politically expedient and the NRA leadership's words have no real connection to what they do.