Former President Donald Trump urged gun owners to vote in the 2024 election as he addressed thousands of members of the National Rifle Association, which officially endorsed him just before Trump took the stage at their annual meeting in Texas on Saturday. “We’ve got to get gun owners to vote,” Trump said a day after campaigning in Minnesota in the midst of his criminal hush money trial. “I think you’re a rebellious bunch. But let’s be rebellious and vote this time.” Trump, in his speech, said the Second Amendment “is very much on the ballot” in November, alleging that, if Democratic President Joe Biden “gets four more years they are coming for your guns, 100% certain. Crooked Joe has a 40-year-record of trying to rip firearms out of the hands of law-abiding citizens.”
Quick Read
- Endorsement History: This marks the third presidential endorsement Trump has received from the NRA, following endorsements in 2016 and 2020.
- Gun Rights Advocacy: In his speech at the NRA’s leadership forum, Trump reiterated his commitment to protecting Second Amendment rights and criticized Biden-era gun control measures, promising to protect gun owners’ rights vigorously.
- Political Context: The endorsement comes at a contentious time, with increasing mass shootings and ongoing legal challenges facing the NRA. Trump’s rhetoric aims to galvanize gun owners, a group he claims is underrepresented at the polls.
- Legislative Background: Trump’s endorsement aligns with his promises to roll back gun control laws, opposing recent legislative efforts like the Safer Communities Act signed by President Biden, which aimed to tighten background checks and close certain loopholes.
- NRA’s Challenges: The organization itself is dealing with significant legal and financial issues, including a recent jury decision finding it liable for misusing donor funds, which led to the resignation of longtime leader Wayne LaPierre.
The Associated Press has the story:
NRA endorses Trump for President again, as Trump woos ‘rebellious’ gun owners
Newslooks- Dallas- (AP)
The National Rifle Association unsurprisingly endorsed former President Donald Trump on Saturday, delivering Trump his third consecutive presidential endorsement from the key Second Amendment lobbying group, as it faces controversies over rising mass shootings and legal battles over funding misuse.
Speaking at the NRA’s leadership forum in Dallas Saturday afternoon, the 2024 GOP presidential nominee said he will “stand strong for your rights and liberties,” and asking gun owners to vote, claiming “gun owners don’t vote.”
Trump, who was endorsed by the NRA in 2016 and 2020, has for years expressed support for the gun-rights lobbying group, saying in 2019 the NRA should be “represented and respected,” proclaiming himself as the “biggest Second Amendment person there is” even as he flipped back and forth on calls for stronger background checks, a policy the NRA has routinely opposed.
Trump’s speech on Saturday also comes as the 2024 GOP nominee pledges to roll back Biden-era gun control laws, promising the NRA in February that “no one will lay a finger on your firearms”—President Joe Biden, on the other hand, has vowed to continue pursuing a ban on AR-15-style rifles.
The Biden administration has taken a number of steps to try to combat gun violence, including a new rule that aims to close a loophole that has allowed tens of thousands of guns to be sold every year by unlicensed dealers who do not perform background checks to ensure the potential buyer is not legally prohibited from having a firearm.
Trump has pledged to continue to defend the Second Amendment, which he claims is “under siege,” and has called himself “the best friend gun owners have ever had in the White House” as the United States faces record numbers of deaths due to mass shootings. Last year ended with 42 mass killings and 217 deaths, making it one of the deadliest years on record.
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee has been criticized by Biden, specifically for remarks that Trump made this year after a school shooting in Iowa. Trump called the incident “very terrible” only to later say that “we have to get over it. We have to move forward.”
Speaking Friday in Minnesota, Trump said: “You know, it’s an amazing thing. People that have guns, people that legitimately have guns, they love guns and they use guns for the right purpose, but they tend to vote very little and yet they have to vote for us. There’s nobody else to vote for because the Democrats want to take their guns away and they will take their guns away.”
He added, “That’s why I’m going to be talking to the NRA tomorrow to say, ‘You gotta get out and vote.’”
Biden has made curtailing gun violence a major part of his administration and reelection campaign, creating the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention overseen by Vice President Kamala Harris. Biden also has urged Congress to ban so-called assault weapons — something Democrats shied from even just a few years ago.
Harris said in a statement before Trump’s NRA appearance that “at a time when guns are the number one cause of death for children and teens in America, Donald Trump is catering to the gun lobby and threatening to make the crisis worse if reelected.” She said she and Biden “will continue to take on the gun lobby to keep Americans safe, while Donald Trump will continue to sacrifice our kids’ and communities’ safety to keep these special interests happy.”
When Trump was president, there were moments when he pledged to strengthen gun laws. After a high school mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, that killed 17 people and wounded 17 others, Trump told survivors and family members that he would be “very strong on background checks.” He claimed he would stand up to the NRA but later he backpedaled, saying there was “not much political support.”
Prominent gun safety groups that have endorsed Biden were planning to demonstrate near the convention center in Dallas where the gun lobby’s annual forum was being held.
While Trump sees strong support in Texas, Democrats in the state think they have a chance to flip a Senate seat in November with U.S. Rep. Colin Allred leading an underdog campaign to unseat Republican Ted Cruz. No Democrat has won a statewide office in Texas in 30 years, the longest streak of its kind in the country.
Big Number
715. That’s how many mass shooting deaths the Gun Violence Archive recorded nationwide last year—the most the organization has recorded since it started tracking gun data a decade ago. That tops the 668 killed in mass shootings in 2021 or the 494 in 2020, according to the archive, which tracks mass shootings in which at least four people were killed or injured, not including the shooter. Mass shootings have been slightly on the rise since the pandemic, and have increased from 417 in 2017—when Trump left office—and 429 during the last full year of his presidency. So far this year, the archive has recorded 191 mass shooting deaths and 637 injuries over 158 events.
Key Background
The NRA, a longtime lobbying group, endorsed Trump’s 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns, spending over $30 million on his 2016 presidential campaign, and took out a major ad attacking Biden ahead of the 2020 election. While the NRA has had a long history of supporting GOP and pro-gun candidates, its endorsement of Trump came at a troubling time for the group, amid a spree of mass shootings in the U.S., including the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012, when former head Wayne LaPierre controversially argued “the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” Democrats in Congress have also pushed heavily for gun violence legislation in recent years. In 2022, Biden signed the Safer Communities Act, enhancing licensing for background checks and closing the so-called “fire sale loophole,” allowing gun sellers to quickly sell firearms to avoid a background check if they lose their federal licensing. That same year, the House passed a major assault weapons ban while still under Democratic control, though the legislation was largely symbolic and failed in the Senate. It now faces long odds in the GOP-controlled House, with heavy opposition from Republican lawmakers who argue it would impose an overbearing burden on Americans who rely on firearms for self-defense. Democrats, meanwhile, have primarily targeted automatic and semiautomatic weapons in a decades-long push for gun control amid a spree of mass shootings. In 2022, the then-Democratic-led House Oversight Committee released a report finding gunmakers’ tripled their revenue from the sale of AR-15-style rifles from 2019 to 2021.
Tangent
The NRA has also faced legal hurdles in recent months. In February, a New York jury found the group liable over a 26-year scheme to dodge IRS reporting requirements and divert donor funds toward lavish personal vacations, private jets and a yacht. That jury found LaPierre cost the NRA $5.4 million, and ordered him to return $4.4 to the organization—NRA executive Wilson Phillips was ordered to repay the NRA $2 million. LaPierre resigned after over 30 years leading the NRA before the start of that trial.
