By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
New Hampshire Public Radio (NHPR) is reporting that President Donald Trump and leaders in the Justice Department are saying they are “the most pro-gun presidency in modern American history,” and that many in the firearms industry agree.
This certainly separates the Trump administration from past presidencies on both sides of the political spectrum, and that much may be carved in granite thanks to six words spoken at a recent presser by acting Attorney General Todd Blanche.
He was announcing several regulatory changes—full reversals from the Biden administration’s blatantly anti-gun-rights policies—and introducing the newly-confirmed director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Robert Cekada. After chiding each other about the number of guns each owns, Blanche made a comment which had to have caused Capitol Hill gun grabbers and their allies in the gun prohibition movement to choke.
“The Second Amendment is not negotiable,” Blanche observed.
Just like that, Blanche set the tone for what the Second Amendment community is hoping will transpire over the next two years. Until now, the right to keep and bear arms has been treated like the ugly step-child of the Bill of Rights. While the amendment states boldly that the “right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed,” Congress and state legislatures have been doing precisely that for years, all in the name of public safety, or safe schools, or “sensitive places,” or any one of several other excuses government has used to justify such things as Firearm Owner Identification (FOID) cards, waiting periods, “enhanced background checks” (whatever they are), permits-to-purchase, one-gun-a-month schemes, background checks for buying ammunition, so-called “safe storage” requirements, and bans on so-called “assault weapons” and “large-capacity magazines.”
In a story headlined Gun rights groups see ‘golden age’ under Trump administration, NHPR details why the Trump administration has been far friendlier to the Second Amendment than any recent predecessors.
Evidence of the continental shift in philosophy at ATF and the Department of Justice are legal actions taken against the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and Virgin Islands Police for foot-dragging on gun permit processing, and last week’s lawsuit against the City of Denver’s ban on semi-auto rifles and original-capacity magazines.
Such legal actions would never have happened under Joe Biden, Bill Clinton or Barack Obama, and maybe not even under George Bush senior or junior.
As noted by NHPR, “Gun control advocates worry about those lawsuits and the recent changes to federal regulations.”
Perhaps to demonstrate the chasm between the Trump administration and Democrats, the NHPR report ended with this:
“Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Calif., chair of the House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, said in a statement that Democrats would continue pushing for ‘universal background checks, safe storage, and red flag laws,’ which he said ‘have overwhelming support from Americans on both sides of the aisle and will remain a top priority once we take back the majority.’”
This may be all the more reason for gun owners to throw off their traditional mid-term lethargy and vote in November to keep the GOP in control on Capitol Hill.
