What the heck is President Trump up to?
The 2016 Republican Party Platform supports “the right of individuals to keep and bear arms,” properly calling it “a natural inalienable right that predates the Constitution and is secured by the Second Amendment.”
Yes, Mr. Trump has waffled over the years on such scams as an “assault weapons ban.” (“Assault weapons” have selector switches that allow them to fire full-auto. Since the BATF won’t allow them to be either imported or newly manufactured “for civilian use,” they’re so expensive as to be de facto banned for all but the wealthy or the extremely dedicated, already – even before we start talking about requiring our fingerprints and that $200 “tax”.
The failed “assault weapons ban” of 1994-2004, was a lie (spear-headed by Democrats & RINO Republicans). It merely tried to ban certain cosmetic features (“descending” handgrips, bayonet lugs) on certain SEMI-automatic rifles, accomplishing no reduction in crime . . . though it did produce such charming and bizarre work-arounds as the “thumb-hole stock.” (And let’s not forget that George Bush “The Second” stated that he would renew the ban and make it permanent if such a bill landed on his desk.)
But candidate Trump, who has a concealed-carry permit and says he sometimes carries, and who now says he believes trained teachers should be armed (a good step – it’s worked in Israel), said during the sixth Republican primary debate on Jan. 14, 2016, “I am a Second Amendment person. If we had guns in California on the other side where the bullets went in the different direction, you wouldn’t have 14 or 15 people dead right now. If even in Paris, if they had guns on the other side, going in the opposite direction, you wouldn’t have 130 people plus dead.”
After last year’s NRA convention, Mr. Trump tweeted “To the N.R.A., I can proudly say I will never, ever let you down.” The NRA gave his campaign $30 million and endorsed him. I’ve got to believe 95 percent of gun owners voted for Trump.
Yet there he was, holding a big “What can be done?” White House discussion group with both Republican and Democrat “congresscritters” on Feb. 28, after the Feb. 14 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Florida.
Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, who was shot by a Democrat activist last summer because he’s a Republican (hey, “Love Trumps Hate”), suggested interstate recognition of concealed-carry permits (“reciprocity,” as with driver’s licenses) would help. The President told him that couldn’t be included in “the bill” because it would never pass. (What?)
But President Trump then advised geriatric fascist Dianne Feinstein of California and her cohorts about their renewed “assault weapons ban” – they keep referring to one-shot-per-trigger-pull rifles as “weapons of war,” when just by coincidence “weapons of war” are precisely what the Second Amendment protects – that she should “go ahead and put it in.”
This guy sat there and offered
