Five days ago, the Wheeling News-Register’s front page featured this story about West Virginia’s 1st District congressman:

McKinley Backs ‘Red Flag’ Gun Regulations

McKinley, of course, was following President Trump’s lead and our local Republican paper was more than willing to publicize how one of its favorites was indeed sensitive to local concerns over gun violence. Predictably, Trump retreated. What about our local congressman? According to the Parkersburg News and Sentinel (another Ogden paper in McKinley’s district), McKinley was in the Parkersburg area on Wednesday to help open a new plant and meet with constituents.* At the constituent meeting, the paper covered his comments on a variety of subjects including guns. On background checks:

With recent mass shootings and calls for legislative action, the president initially said he was in favor of more detailed background checks. However, he has since backed off, saying the country already had a good background check system in place.

McKinley said he believes the president is coming to understand the nuances and implications of it.

(This has to be the first time anyone has ever put Trump and understanding “nuances” in the same sentence.)

McKinley’s example of nuance is not one I would have thought of:

There could be instances where someone on a hunting trip who lets another person use their gun could be charged with a federal crime.

”Let’s have some adult conversations about this,” he said.

A hunting trip? This is the best example that McKinley could come up with?

More importantly, McKinley also talked about red flag laws:

McKinley said he is open to the idea of red flag laws where people determined as a danger to themselves or others to be a basis for having their guns removed, but wants more information before committing to anything.

Let’s see: On Sunday, Wheeling’s Ogden papers headlined that McKinley backs red flag regulations. On Thursday, Ogden’s Parkersburg paper reported that, pending more information, McKinley hasn’t yet committed to them. Is McKinley saying different things to different constituents? It certainly looks that way. It should also be noted that Sunday’s local article on McKinley can be found at some of the other Ogden newspapers that serve McKinley's congressional district, but I could not find it on the News-Sentinel site.

• Who did McKinley meet with? The Parkersburg article does not state who the constituent group was. Pictures of these events usually end up on his Facebook page and sometimes on his Twitter account but neither mentioned the meeting. Why wasn't it mentioned?