Second Amendment advocates concerned that President Donald Trump has capitulated to the gun-grabbing cause are taking a sigh of relief as mainstream media reports the commander-in-chief has simply lost interest.
“He’s started to move on,” a White House staffer quoted by The Daily Beast said. “If it were up to the president, he’d do background checks today. But that’s not how it works, and he loses patience [quickly].”
If we take that statement at face value, it would seem that Trump simply moved on because the process took too long. Both Republicans and Democrats in Congress have signaled support for additional gun control measures, but it seems like the news cycle has already moved past that.
Democratic leaders blame Second Amendment advocates for Trump’s pivot away from the issue.
“We’ve seen this movie before: President Trump, feeling public pressure in the immediate aftermath of a horrible shooting, talks about doing something meaningful to address gun violence, but inevitably, he backtracks in response to pressure from the NRA and the hard-right,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement. “These retreats from President Trump are not only disappointing but also heartbreaking, particularly for the families of the victims of gun violence.”
In the days following a deadly mass shooting at an El Paso, Texas Walmart by a white supremacist, President Trump signaled lukewarm support for gun control. Trump’s approval led Senate Republicans to warm up to legislation that would implement “red flag” laws nationwide. This would allow individuals suspected of being mentally unfit to have their Second Amendment rights suspended by a court. He also indicated support for implementing more extensive background checks for firearm purchases.
Red flag laws are already in place in a number of states, including some with high levels of gun violence.
For Second Amendment purists, this isn’t Trump’s first transgression. After the mass shooting at a country music festival in Los Angeles, an event the mainstream media largely dropped from their coverage when they couldn’t blame Trump or Republicans, the President indicated support for a ban on bump stocks.
While this stay on gun control activism is certainly welcome news, Second Amendment supporters shouldn’t be complacent. If anything, this has shown us that Trump’s worst impulses to work with Democrats can be curbed with the appropriate amount of political pressure.
The President needs to understand one thing: he gains absolutely no supporters by joining the gun-grabbers. None. The mainstream media will find other ways to call him racist or whatever else no matter what he does. However, he does lose support — mainly from the people who elected him in the first place.
