Posted on 03/27/2023 5:43:45 PM PDT by Drew68
UPDATE: I did not know about the Nashville school shooting until after I sent out this story. I did not intend to make a political statement of any kind about the victims from the Covenant School. I pray for the families and the school.
As president, Donald Trump privately pushed for banning AR-15-type rifles, according to a new report. Trump was — and is — a big defender of Second Amendment rights. So the new revelation is surprising that he tried to renew the “assault weapon” ban during his first two years in office.
The news about Trump is buried in a lengthy story in The Washington Post on Monday about AR-15 style rifles. The report says he tried multiple times in 2018 and 2019 to get support for a federal “assault-weapon” ban.
“I don’t know why anyone needs an AR-15,” Trump told aides as he flew on Marine One to the White House in August 2019, according to a person who heard his comments. As one former official put it in describing the real estate developer turned politician, “His reflexes were a New York liberal on guns. He doesn’t have knee-jerk conservative reflexes.” But Trump was also petrified of the NRA and others taking him on, former advisers said, and heard from a number of advisers that it would be unpopular. Trump ultimately stopped entertaining the idea of working with Democrats on gun control later that year, when he was caught in a scandal over his now-infamous phone call with Ukraine’s president. “F--- it, I’m not going to work with them on anything. They’re f---ing impeaching me,” Trump said in one Oval Office meeting, according to a participant.""In the summer of 2019, after back-to-back mass shootings in Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso involving an AR-15-style pistol and an AKM-style rifle, Trump told aides that he wanted to ban AR-15s, according to people present for the statements.
The AR-15 is a style of rifle. The FBI crime statistics for 2021 show there were 11,628 people killed by guns, and 447 of them were by rifles of any type. The bureau does not track the style of the rifle.
A spokesman for Trump, who is running for reelection in 2024, did not deny the remarks. From The Post:
"Steven Cheung, a Trump spokesman, did not respond to detailed findings in this article but said that “there had been no bigger defender of the Second Amendment than President Trump.” He said that Trump had offered other proposals after mass shootings, such as adding security guards to schools and allowing teachers who are licensed to carry a weapon to do so."
Trump’s bipartisan gun control
While this reporting from The Post is from anonymous sources, it lines up with Trump’s public comment in 2018 in a bipartisan White House meeting on gun control measures after the horrific school mass shooting in Parkland, FL.
Trump told Sen. Dianne Feinstein in a live TV meeting that he would look at her “assault weapon” ban bill. It caused an uproar with the pro-gun groups that helped get him elected. I cued up this video to watch him tell her:
NRA protest
The Post reported this meeting and one other in more detail:
He mentioned it on live television to one of the Senate’s most vocal gun-control backers, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), and in a private meeting with Parkland families. His comments rattled NRA officials and some of his own advisers. NRA representatives later warned Trump against taking action. “They came up here and said to him, the base is going to blow you up,” according to a former official who sat in during a series of meetings with the NRA. They, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private interactions.""Shortly after Parkland, President Donald Trump repeatedly floated the idea of supporting a new assault weapons ban.
Trump supported the NRA in the same 2018 meeting with Feinstein and others (transcript here): "I’m a fan of the NRA. I mean, there’s no bigger fan. I’m a big fan of the NRA. They want to do it. These are great people. These are great patriots. They love our country. But that doesn’t mean we have to agree on everything."
The not agreeing on everything is a reference to the issue of raising the federal minimum age for owning a gun from 18 to 21 years old.
Does he remember when he had to hide in a bunker with the riots that burned down the church adjacent to the WH?
Thank you Drew is a Rhonda fanboy
Thank you Drew is a Rhonda fanboy
There’s a bunch of folks around who are all gaga over Tulsi Gabbard, the supposed “enlightened former democrat”.
Her record is far worse on 2A, than Trump’s.
I’ll give Trump a chance to get it right, we need his leadership badly. Hope he doesn’t let us down.
“I’m a big fan of the NRA. They want to do it. These are great people. These are great patriots. They love our country. But that doesn’t mean we have to agree on everything.””
In this case, yes.... yes it does.
Because Trump has good grades on 2A. You saying otherwise is a lie. Unless you’re a Lefty, that is. Is that what you’re saying, he hasn’t done enough to attack the 2A? That would make sense.
Or you can believe Trump's own words as posted in several YouTube videos on this thread.
Or you can believe Trump's past actions.
Trump sucks on the 2nd. Don’t give him a free pass on this.
I was rating 43 as a B+ 2 terms overall compared to lousy Trump’s 1 term, anyway.
I’m hopeful for Desantis who seems, maybe, better overall.. Who knows with these elites.
Whatever weapon the average citizen peace officers have the we can have. Another discussion of where peace officers are these days. JBT pumped up on roids with special privileges under court protection alert. I dislike cops these days.
I agree with you about Tulsi. It’s hard to believe how easily some people are fooled. As far as these comments from Trump go, I wonder how many people responding are aware that these comments were allegedly made in 2018 and 2019 and the Washington Post provides no source.
“Trump sucks on the 2nd. ”
________________
The pro 2A people not lying about President Trump are 100% at odds with you:
The Federalist Society:
A Second Amendment Grade for President Trump So Far
August 2020
Excerpt:
Bolstering The Federal Judiciary
Thus far, the President’s most enduring legacy with respect to the Second Amendment will likely be his federal judicial nominees, who are primed to stand as a bulwark against future attempts by lawmakers to infringe on the right to keep and bear arms. While not all of these nominees have had the opportunity to rule on Second Amendment cases, several high-profile picks have shown they are willing to come to the Amendment’s defense. Most importantly, by nominating judges who properly understand the role of the judiciary—to say what the law is, and not what they wish it to be—Trump has helped decrease the risk that federal judges will undermine the right to keep and bear arms based on their own policy preferences.
Many Second Amendment advocates were disappointed when the Supreme Court this term continued its decade-long refusal to take up a meaningful challenge to restrictive gun control laws. The Supreme Court’s reluctance to do its duty with respect to the Second Amendment has been despite—not because of—Trump’s two nominees to the nation’s highest bench. Both Justice Neil Gorsuch and Justice Brett Kavanaugh have signed on to dissents from denials of certiorari in important Second Amendment cases, expressing their disappointment that the Court has so long declined to adequately protect this right from clear infringement. Moreover, in one of these dissents from denial, Justice Gorsuch did not refrain from attacking the Trump Administration itself over its agency-propagated bump stock ban.
The President’s two Supreme Court picks are far from his only judicial nominees to prove themselves stalwarts of Second Amendment jurisprudence. Several of Trump’s lower court picks have made waves for their staunch defenses of the right to keep and bear arms.
For example, Judge Amy Coney Barrett of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals issued a strong dissent in a case where two of her colleagues voted to uphold a Wisconsin law imposing a lifetime ban on gun ownership for non-violent felons. The plaintiff in the case was hardly a violent menace. He had been convicted of a single count of federal mail fraud after submitting sham requests for Medicare to reimburse non-compliant shoe inserts. Nevertheless, under the interaction of federal and Wisconsin law, this rendered the plaintiff ineligible to ever again exercise his Second Amendment rights.
Judge Barrett analyzed the case through an originalist lens, noting that “Founding-era legislatures did not strip felons of the right to keep and bear arms simply because of their status as felons . . . but only when they judged that doing so was necessary to protect the public safety.”
Similarly, Judge Stephanos Bibas of the Third Circuit wrote a scathing dissent when the other two judges on his panel upheld New Jersey’s ban on so-called “high-capacity magazines” as “reasonably fit[ting] the State’s interest in promoting public safety.” Judge Bibas excoriated the majority for failing to take the Second Amendment and Supreme Court precedent seriously. He reminded them that their job as judges is not to “water [the Second Amendment] down and balance it away based on our own sense of wise policy.” Rather, “the Framers made that choice for us. We must treat the Second Amendment the same as the rest of the Bill of Rights.”
Finally, four Trump-nominated Fifth Circuit judges—James Ho, Don Willett, Kyle Duncan, and Kurt Engelhardt—joined together in a notable opinion dissenting from the Circuit’s denial of a request to rehear an important Second Amendment case before all of the Circuit judges. This case involved the federal prohibition on interstate handgun sales, requiring all handgun sales to out-of-state buyers first be transferred to an in-state dealer.
As the dissenting judges noted, this law effectively imposes an additional waiting period and tax on certain handgun buyers, without really furthering a compelling government interest. Moreover, as they wrote, the Government “turns the Second Amendment on its head” by arguing that “to protect against the violations of the few, we must burden the constitutional rights of the many.” Importantly, “[o]ur Founders crafted a Constitution to promote the liberty of the individual, not the convenience of the Government.”
Final Assessment? More Good Than Bad.
In his first term, President Trump largely lived up to his promise to protect Americans’ Second Amendment rights. There have been a few missteps along the way, but on the whole, the Trump Administration has kept its word when it comes to our right to keep and bear arms.
https://fedsoc.org/commentary/fedsoc-blog/a-second-amendment-grade-for-president-trump-so-far
I remember that. Wow. So bad. Take the gun then Due Process. Yikes! How very communist of him.
Trump’s sons are avid hunters and supp9rters of 2nd amendment, he has been schooled by the BOTH of them I call BS to this article!! The AR IS NOT a weapon of mass destruction and I am quite sure the sons have shown Trump that the weapon is NOT a machine gun!!!
More good than bad isn’t much of a leg to stand on. I will say he helped a LOT with the USSC picks, but I think they are incidental picks when his concern was abortion banning.
“If Trump says he will not ban your guns, he won’t ban them. He has never been a liar.’
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Rafael Cruz would beg to differ on that Trump not lying thing.
Mostly by placing judges on the bench who will strike down the gun laws that Trump would love to sign.
My chief complaint about Trump, is his HR skills. He has a subpar batting average on personnel matters.
I suspected the bumpstock ban was Trump putting too much trust in his "people." It was very oddly unMAGA-like. It solved nothing, alienated his base, and gained no brownie points with the left or centrists.
I haven't decided if Trump or DeSantis is My Guy in 2024. As I wrote elsewhere, and with a hat tip to Kurt Schlichter, I want My Guy to give me a detailed plan (without surrendering the secret sauce) for retaking Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Georgia. THAT is what we need.
The bumpstock ban is a strike. This WaPo story is nothing. Your mileage may vary.
All the FBI had left to blame after Mandolay Bay was bump stocks. They protected the shooter and his motives.
You’re full of it. No evidence of what Trump “would love to sign” and you just admitted he appointed pro 2nd Amendment judges.
Heard him refer to “Our great 2nd Amendment” countless times.
Right, no one would make up a lie like that about Trump!
Never mind, the most important thing a President can do in regard to the Second Amendment is nominate judges to the Supreme Court and Trump did a better job that than any Republican in history.
Take your neocon/DeSantis lies and shove them.
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