Let’s be honest: few people would say that Donald Trump delivered on the Second Amendment during his first term in office. Whether we want to blame Congress, his staff, mass shooters, or chalk it up to a complicated game of 4D chess, the fact remains that for the first half of his administration, he had Republicans in control of both the House and the Senate. But, despite the elusive trifecta, gun rights didn’t move.
After the trifecta was lost in the 2018 midterms, Trump even made some anti-gun executive moves along with some alarming anti-gun comments, like the one below.
At one point, he even had Dianne Feinstein reacting with glee when he appeared to support an “assault weapon” ban.
But, as 2020 approached and Trump faced impeachment, he realized that he couldn’t continue to treat gun owners like pawns to be used for political horse trading. Even the NRA, an organization that’s been criticized for a mixed record in its defense of the right to keep and bear arms, indicated that leadership was done with Trump’s games and would not be helping him unless he shaped up.
To get the support needed to win the 2024 election, Trump has made some serious promises. He said that nobody would “lay a finger” on firearms (right after lying about not making any anti-gun moves his first time in office). He’s also made repeatedly promised of working to get a concealed carry reciprocity bill through Congress.
Now that he’s won election to a second term, smarter gun groups are reminding us about the promises he’s made and expectations that he deliver on them. The National Association for Gun Rights has laid out a series of policy proposals that they expect Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress to start implementing when they take power in January.
These include . . .
- National constitutional carry (not just permit/license reciprocity)
- Deregulate suppressors
- Abolish the BATFE, starting with firing the director on day one and cutting the budget at least 50%
- End all Biden executive actions on guns
- End all federal financial support for “red flag” laws
- Destroy all unlawful registries
- Stop unconstitutional additions to NICS
- Stop controlling firearm imports
- End all federal weapons taxes
- Repeal the NFA, GCA, and Hughes Amendment
Instead of viewing this as a nice wish list about which we should be happy getting partially accomplished, we should look at this list as the bare minimum that Trump and a Republican-controlled Congress owes to gun owners. The “Kamala would have been far worse” bit shouldn’t satisfy gun owners at all after the NYSRPA v Bruen decision basically makes all of the above the law of the land.
With some testicular fortitude, a good amount of effort, and help from pro-rights organizations (especially the Firearms Policy Coalition), it’s possible now to achieve all of the above in the courts over the next 5 to 10 years. Having Republicans accomplish the above through legislation would saves time and the government a pile of money.
To make that happen, it’s time to hold the Trump administration’s feet to the fire. If they don’t prioritize rewarding one of their most dependable constituencies and achieve most, if not all of the items listed above, Republicans in Congress should — and likely will — be voted out in 2026, whether by primary challenges or losses to anti-gun Democrats. After all, if they aren’t going to do better than the other part on guns, why would gun owners bother go come out and vote?
The next two years before the midterms will be Trumpism’s big second chance to prove to the American public that it can perform for the citizenry and protect our rights. They won’t deserve and likely won’t get a third chance if they bungle it this time.
“Let’s be honest: few people would say that Donald Trump delivered on the Second Amendment during his first term in office.”
Horseshit.
We have a 6-3 Supreme Court, in our favor. Had Hillary been installed, she would have replaced Scalia, Kennedy, and Bader-Ginsberg with Sotomayor and Kagan sycophants, and the very real prospect of Heller being reversed. That opens the door for mass gun confiscation…
People in the ‘2A/pro-gun community’ often say things that makes those outside the ‘2A/pro-gun community’ think we are just about guns and don’t care about anything else. The truth is, that’s not true. Its not that its guns, its that its a constitutional right and we know what comes after they get their bans and restrictions and turn the 2A into a ‘granted permission’ rather than a right. What comes after is all the other rights being subjugated to their control.
There is a reason they attack the 2A so strongly – its the only right with a specific unqualified command to government that says ‘shall not’.
Back when the constitution was written, a command of ‘shall not’ meant ‘in no way, no how, absolutely not under any circumstances will you do this’. ‘…the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed’ – or in other words ‘government, in no way, no how, absolutely not under any circumstances will you’ infringe this right.
If the anti-gun can set the precedent of beating the strongest constitutional right with such a specific command, to make it ‘permission’ based and under their control it becomes ‘granted by government’ which means what the government grants they can take away. This precedent can then be used to attack all the other rights in which government is not commanded by such a command not to touch. They have already looked at doing this for the 1st amendment, for example, there are plenty of examples of democrat politicians and Kamala and Walz and others saying they need to control social media to ‘hammer’ out ‘mis-information’ and guess who gets to determine what is mis-information, that’s right, government – and despite SCOTUS in cases already ruling that even ‘mis-information’ is protected speech under the 1st amendment it did not stop the Biden-Harris admin from colluding and conspiring with social media to censor the free speech of millions of American citizens. Biden-Harris tried to get control of the 4th amendment in the Caniglia v. Strom case at SCOTUS, to have the ‘community care taking exception’ extended to basically anytime ‘government thought’ without warrant and thankfully SCOTUS saw through all that and ruled in favor of Caniglia and upheld the 4th.
What are the three key things attacked by every tyrant in every tyranny take over of a country in the last 300 years, even father back into ancient rome? Control what the people can hear and say, disarm the populace, and enter homes and property and take what you want any time you want.
So protecting the 2A is not just about guns, even though guns are involved, its really about protecting ALL the constitutional rights for ALL American citizens.
“What comes after is all the other rights being subjugated to their control.”
That’s what the 14th Amendment was for; fait acompli.
Trump is a con man and an opportunist who cares for nobody but himself. Gun owners need to come to grips with the reality that trump will sell out gun owners in a short minute if it benefits him.
Ahhhh the MIner49er ‘Missy12’ persona arrives.
no he won’t, didn’t last time either. he didn’t collect a paycheck, and he sent me a nice check ‘cuz i had kids. i expect him to do some great things. we were all better off four years ago in so many ways. all the current gun control going on will be slapped down and more positive gains made.
why are you haunting gun sites? i doubt you own any.
Ok, this is a little, well, needs explanation.
By U.S. Law Trump did receive a paycheck he just didn’t actually collect it to be used by him personally because he chose to donate his earnings to government departments administering various charitable causes so the money would be used for the charitable causes. So while those donations did not come from Trumps own paycheck pocket directly because he had the paychecks donated, he did indeed by his actions give his paychecks to charitable causes thus not actually making any ‘tangible paycheck’ president income that benefited him personally.
Preach it !!
“… for the first half of his administration, he had Republicans in control of both the House and the Senate.”
No, Republicans did NOT control the U.S. Senate for the umpteen thousandth time.
Did Republicans have a simple majority in the U.S. Senate the first two years of Trump’s first term as President? Sure. And, thanks to the U.S. Senate’s “cloture” rule, a simple majority is not able to vote on proposed legislation unless 60 U.S. Senators agree to vote on it. Thus, a political party does NOT “control” the U.S. Senate until they have at least 60 U.S. Senators in the U.S. Senate, which Republicans have not had for a very long time (if ever).
Caveat: the U.S. Senate’s cloture rule does not apply to budget bills nor to confirmation of Presidential appointments. In those cases, a simple majority is all that is needed to pass budgets and confirm appointments.
Due to Republicans only having 53 U.S. Senators in the next session of Congress (which falls short of the U.S. Senate’s 60 Senator cloture rule), Republicans will not be able to bring any firearm legislation to the U.S. Senate floor for a vote. That means the only NAGR wish which is guaranteed achievable is reversing President Biden’s executive orders.
Trump may be able to satisfy two additional NAGR wishes (stop unconstitutional additions to NICS and
stop controlling firearm imports) if he applies a heavy hand to corresponding executive agencies. Whether or not Trump will do that is anyone’s guess.
Time for Republicans to nuke the filibuster. Chuck Schumer was planning to do this if Dems had kept the Senate and Harris was president.
Voters are fickle. Things change. There’s a reason we don’t operate like that.
I don’t see Trump keeping the majority of his campaign promises…because, like any other politician, he would pretty much say anything to get elected.
First: “Remember that time, almost seven years ago, that Trump said to take the guns? I can tell that was a real policy position. Remember all the times he talked about that at his rallies and every time he got in front of a camera? Well, none of that is true, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let this thing go that I get to hold over Trump!”
Then: “Trump says things he doesn’t mean! Reeeee!”
Cope harder, whiners.
Let’s strip the BATF budget and cut staff back severely, But let’s not abolish the agency until all regulation on firearms is repealed or reversed. If there is a gun law on the books, some agency will be charged with enforcement, and if there is no BATF it will be the FBI. This sounds like a really bad idea.
Trump is already a lame duck president. The same anti-America cabal from Trump’s first term are arrayed against him (this is what always happens to “outsiders” in two-party systems of governance. Dims, Others, Republicrats, Burrocrats, (“the usual suspeccts”) will all have the same goal: squelch change.
Kings come and go; beauracrats carry on as if nothing happened.