President Donald Trump give remarks at the Unleashing American Energy event at Energy Department headquarters.
June 29, 2017 Photo Simon Edelman, Energy Department
Originally posted November 18, 2016.
When the NRA endorsed Donald Trump for president, there was some backlash among members who didn’t trust Trump’s record on gun rights and from those who preferred other candidates. Ultimately, of course, Trump would win the presidency, but not before adding Gov. Mike Pence to the ticket as his Vice President. Of the governor the NRA writes: “Pro-gun candidates don’t come any better than Mike Pence.”
That, to say the least, is a massive vote of confidence from the nation’s largest organization focused on protecting the Second Amendment. Pence made the Second Amendment a highlight of his Republican National Convention speech (which you can watch below) saying “or the sake of our Second Amendment and for the sake of all our other God-given liberties, we must ensure that the next president appointing justices to the Supreme Court is Donald Trump.”
Perhaps the first place the Trump/Pence team will focus on gun rights is a national right to carry reciprocity bill. Chris Eger at Guns.com writes of carry reciprocity:
The concept, to treat concealed carry permits like drivers’ licenses, allowing current permit holders to carry in any other state that issues permits, has been the subject of failed federal legislation in 2011, 2013, and 2014 while a current bill, sponsored by U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, has been collecting dust in the Senate Judiciary committee although it has 35 co-sponsors. Its companion House measure has 121 co-sponsors but has been aging in committee since last March.
However, with the White House under new management in 2017, the next Congress may see better luck getting a bill passed.
Meanwhile, the NRA is taking a deserved victory for helping propel Trump to victory. The Washington Free Beacon quotes NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre:
“In northern Florida and Pennsylvania, throughout Ohio, Wisconsin, and Michigan, in small towns and communities all across America, you were the special forces that swung this election and sent Donald Trump and Mike Pence to the White House,” he continued. “You did this. Don’t let anybody else tell you otherwise.”
LaPierre said it was Clinton’s gun positions, which her own campaign privately labeled the most “forceful” in history, that did her campaign in.
“Hillary Clinton made her hatred for the Second Amendment a central issue of this campaign, and as a result of that fatal mistake, she’s on permanent political vacation,” he said.
He went on to say that President-elect Trump would nominate a “constitutionally sound justice to replace Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court” and called it a “generational victory for Second Amendment freedom.”
With a solid Second Amendment champion in Mike Pence at his side, and the tailwind of electoral support form the Second Amendment community, president-elect Donald Trump can fulfill his campaign trail promises of protecting Americans’ freedoms for generations to come.
