Archive for the 'Donald Trump' Category

The Washington Post.

President Trump talked Tuesday with National Rifle Association chief executive Wayne LaPierre and assured him that universal background checks were off the table, according to several people familiar with the call.

Trump told LaPierre that the White House remained interested in proposals that would address weapons getting into the hands of the mentally ill, including the possibility of backing so-called “red flag” laws that would allow the police to temporarily confiscate guns from people who have been shown to be a danger to themselves or others.

Well, I have two brief comments.  First, it remains to be seen what is in a bill or bills that finally do pass and which Trump signs into law.  And you know something will eventually pass and get signed into law.  The problem is always in the details, and very smart people craft the details.

Second, if this is true, that’s good, but not enough.  Rejecting UBC while also signing FedGov red flag laws will leave Trump with this gun control legacy: Bump stock ban, appointment of a second amendment-hater to head the ATF, and FedGov red flag laws.

I wouldn’t want to run for office on that legacy.

CNN:

Fox News.

 WSJ: “Amid the increased discussion about gun control, some Trump advisers have urged the president not to throw his support behind any of the gun-control measures being discussed in Congress, including so-called red-flag legislation introduced by top Trump ally Sen. Lindsay Graham (R., S.C.), which aims at temporarily blocking dangerous people from accessing firearms. Some advisers have expressed concern that such legislation could violate the Second Amendment and alienate conservative voters. Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son who often speaks with his father about his views on gun laws, has raised concerns about both red-flag legislation and about tightening background checks, according to people familiar with the matter.”

Prediction: Orange Man won’t listen to him.

Via David Codrea, this report on his daughter.

Axios reports that Ivanka “has quietly been calling lawmakers since the El Paso and Dayton massacres to gauge their openness to movement on gun legislation when Congress returns.”

These calls reportedly included a conversation with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), who is preparing to reintroduce the universal background check bill he and Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) pushed after the Sandy Hook Elementary School attack.

One of Manchin’s aides told Axios, “[Ivanka] was trying to get a sense of what bills are out there. She had him explain how they drafted the bill, where it stands and what changes needed to be made in order for it to pass.”

The Washington Post reported Manchin saying Trump called him August 5 and “the two spoke again on [August 6], when Trump said he wanted legislation before September, when the Senate is scheduled to return.”

So you can prepare for universal background checks.  It’s not surprising that his daughter had no earthly idea what these two sponsors wanted, what was in their bill, or why it had no legs before.  Next up, Trump is contacting all the wrong people for counsel.

Amid a renewed push for all kinds of gun control following mass shooting incidents in three states over two consecutive weekends, the Trump administration has reached out to leaders in the Second Amendment community seeking their input, a marked change from the previous administration.

Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the grassroots Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms and founder and CEO of the Second Amendment Foundation confirmed to Liberty Park Press that he had spoken with a “top White House staffer” on a wide range of gun-rights-related topics. He anticipates further discussions.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post reported that President Donald Trump had spoken to Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the National Rifle Association. LaPierre, currently embroiled in the NRA’s internal turmoil, issued a statement that he is “not inclined to discuss private conversations with President Trump or other key leaders on this issue.” That statement can be found on the NRA website.

The same story noted, “A White House official said Trump had asked some advisers and lawmakers this week about whether the NRA had enduring clout amid an internal leadership battle and allegations of improper spending, as well as what his supporters would think of the bill.”

LaPierre and Gottlieb will only lead him down a path to more gun control laws and regulations.  Once again, it’s not surprising that Trump thinks this will bring on board gun owners.  Just talk to their “leaders” and they will “follow.”

He is a Northeastern collectivist at heart, steeped in unions, big government and big programs.  But gun owners aren’t a union, LaPierre is only unpopular because of his refusal to use the power of the NRA to stop new gun control, and Gottlieb loves him some “smart guns.”

Some folks are still in denial, but there are cold winds, and by the turn of the year, we may even see sensible decisions reversed again by the ATF at the whim of a president who thinks we behave like hive insects, following “leaders.”

Townhall.

Donald Trump is a lot of things, but stupid is not one of them. Like all of us, he is understandably horrified by the murder sprees of that progressive environmental eugenics weirdo and that member of Big Chief Warren’s tribe.* But Trump is also keenly aware that any betrayal of his supporters on a literally life or death issue like guns – if you’ve been listening to the left you have a good idea what miserable fate awaits you if you get disarmed and they take power – will result in his wholesale abandonment by his supporters. No, his base probably won’t go vote for the furry, or Doxxy Castro’s brother, or Gaffe-y McOldenheimer. His base will just stay home. Trump will lose, the GOP will lose the Senate, and the left will take over. And bad things will happen to the liberal elite’s enemies, not least of all to Trump and his family.

Trump understands this. And he understands that the media is trying to get him to alienate his own supporters. But so far, he has never stuck us in the back even after the garbage media eagerly reports on his conciliatory talk on subjects near and dear to us in the hopes that it means a betrayal is incoming. It never has been in the past. There’s no reason to believe he would sell us out now.

I hate to break it to you Kurt, but it’s already happened.  It’s a done deal.  It’s past tense.  From the gun rights blogs (like this one), to the folks at reddit/firearms, to one diehard Trump supporter I dined with a few days ago, every single gun owner I know now considers Trump an enemy of gun owners.  Every … single … one.  I don’t know any more Trump defenders among gun owners.  He has succeeded in alienating his base.

And it’s because he already did undercut his base.  Consider: bump stock ban, where he singlehandedly created felons out of 550,000 bump stock owners, support for red flag confiscatory laws, statement opposing the sensible use of suppressors for hearing conservation, and appointment of the former head of the Fraternal Order of Police to head the ATF (who by the way, supported the AWB).  And if reports are accurate, he’s not finished yet.  Give him time.

Get into the game, Kurt.  You’re two years behind the times.

Military.com.

Such laws could be used to “identify mentally disturbed individuals who may commit acts of violence and make sure those people not only get treatment, but, when necessary, involuntary confinement,” Trump said. “Mental illness and hatred pulls the trigger, not the gun.”

[ … ]

“To put this in perspective, there are over 1.6 million disabled veterans with a service-connected adjudication by VA of mental illness, including one million veterans with PTSD,” he said.

Let me assist Military.com with their article headline.  “Trump backs red flag laws that WILL impact veteran gun ownership.”

Because.  Forecasting the future, witchcraft, sorcery, wicked divination by community witchdoctors who may as well howl at the moon at midnight and throw chicken bones over their shoulder.

There.  Fixed.

“This may be considered as the true palladium of liberty…. The right of self defense is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction.”
– St. George Tucker, Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England, 1803

Cited by David Codrea.  His article at Firearms News is full of important commentary on the current state of affairs, and the apparent current support for a new AWB if only enough rulers would favor it.

Don’t miss the fact that Mitch McConnell feels pressured.

“The urgency of this is not lost on any of us,” McConnell said.

But he noted the bar for legislation includes passing the House, garnering 60 votes in the Senate and a presidential signature.

He did not rule out looking at a ban on assault weapons, but noted there is a dispute over whether the 1994 ban that expired in 2004 had showed results.

“It’s certainly one of the front and center issues,” he said. “But what we can’t do is fail to pass something. What I want to see here is an outcome, not a bunch of partisan back and forths, shots across the bow.”

It’s urgent.  They must do something, because politics.  Codrea points out that Trump has jettisoned his base of gun owners.

Since Donald Trump was elected, the gun community has seen the president bypass Congress and ban bump stocks, support over 21 gun purchases, a Department of State over 32-round magazine ban for civilian firearms exports, push red flag laws which destroy the 1^st, 2^nd, 4^th and 5^th Amendments, and a complete ignoring of the evisceration of the 2^nd Amendment in the states of: CA, OR, WA, IL, NM, NV, VT, FL, NY, NJ, MA, etc… And then there is his statement that he “doesn’t like” silencers.

Yes, and I’ll point out one more time that Florida received an influx of Puerto Ricans after the hurricane who will likely vote collectivist, Trump won North Carolina by a small margin, and he is in trouble in Ohio, possibly Georgia and perhaps even Texas.  The road to victory in the next election is narrow.

But it’s like that when you have no principles and undercut the very base you used to put you in office.  We are where we are because enough people didn’t ask Trump the hard questions on his core belief in gun rights (or enough people didn’t listen when I asked the hard questions on core beliefs).  It appears he doesn’t have any.

That thing we fought so hard for, the hard won victory that required throwing Eric Cantor out of office, is going to come to pass.  The republicans are all on the band wagon now and Trump is pushing for it.

President Donald Trump endorsed an expansion of background checks for U.S. gun buyers following the massacres in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, but said there’s “no political appetite” to renew a ban on military-style rifles.

“I’m looking to do background checks,” Trump told reporters as he departed the White House on Wednesday to visit the two violence-stricken cities. “I think background checks are important.”

While he said there’s not enough support in Congress to re-enact what was commonly known as the assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004, he indicated he would discuss the idea with lawmakers. “I will certainly bring that up,” he said.

Remember those words: “I will certainly bring that up.”

So now Trump has ensured that he is a one-term president.  Between the bump stock ban, red flag laws, and universal background checks, he has alienated millions of gun owners.

Other pretend-conservatives have jumped on the band wagon as well. David French has never failed to disappoint me.

A so-called “red flag” law fills the gaps in criminal law and the laws governing mental-health adjudications by granting standing to a defined, limited universe of people to seek temporary seizure orders — called gun-violence-restraining orders — for a gun if they can present admissible evidence that the gun’s owner is exhibiting threatening behavior.

Properly drafted, these laws can save lives while also protecting individual liberty. Improperly drafted, they grant the state an overly broad tool that can be systematically abused to deprive disfavored citizens of a fundamental constitutional right.

He then lists a number of things he pretends will ensure against the improper use of this tool.  It doesn’t matter.

French calls himself a Christian.  I will make no claim whether he is or isn’t.  But I will certainly make the claim that he is an ignorant Christian if he is one at all.  He has bought into the wizardry and community witchcraft of psychiatry.  He may as well advocate howling at the moon at midnight on a full moon and throwing chicken bones over his shoulder.

Some Christian.

So Orange Man’s daughter has called for federal red flag gun confiscation laws.

“Congress should enact Red Flag laws/ Extreme Risk Protection Orders in EVERY state and increase resources dedicated to mental health support.”

Prior to the election I visited reddit/The_Donald enough times to learn that not only was it a cult of personality, part of that personality had to do with Ivanka.

Quite literally, the readers were pushing for her candidacy for president immediately after Orange Man.  She’s pretty, said they.

So now how do the cult members feel about it now that pretty girl wants to take their guns based on the word of a single angry person and a midnight signature by a corrupt judge?

Breitbart:

Here are seven reasons why action against suppressors is politically risky:

1. A Suppressor Has Been Used in One Mass Shooting — A suppressor was used on one of the two guns in the Virginia Beach mass shooting. In other words, of all the mass shootings and/or high profile shootings constantly beamed into homes via the establishment media, a suppressor was used in one of them.
2. Police Still Heard the Gun Shots and Moved Toward Them to Find the Gunman — On May 31, Breitbart News reported Virginia Beach Police Chief James Cervera’s observation that police officers located the Virginia Beach gunman by moving toward the sound of his gun shots.
3. Suppressors Are Not Silencers — The fact that police moved toward the sound of the gunman’s shots, and that witnesses recalled hearing shot after shot, illustrates the fact that suppressors are not silencers. Rather, they are mufflers that remove the dangerous, high pitches associated with a gun shot.
4. Suppressors are Already the Most Highly Regulated Firearm Accessory in America — The acquisition of a suppressor requires the submission of fingerprints and photographs, and an in-depth background check. It requires the would-be buyer to pay a $200 federal tax and to register the suppressor with the government. The process of doing these things takes seven to nine months. The would-be buyer is then allowed to come in and receives a federal tax stamp, showing the suppressor is in the buyer’s name, and the buyer is then allowed to take possession of his suppressor.
5. Suppressor Acquisition Involves Many of the Democrats’ Favorite Gun Controls — As seen in the above paragraph, acquiring a suppressor involves a background check and registration, as well as fingerprinting and photographing the buyer. Yet when these gun controls fail–even in a single instance–Democrats push for more, more, more.
6. Suppressor Ownership is Legal in 42 States — The American Suppressor Association reports that suppressor ownership is legal in 42 states. Many of these states allow use of suppressors in hunting, for the noise-reducing benefits that hunters and the environment gain through suppression use.
7. Smacks of Bump Stock Ban — The fact that suppressors are not silencers; that they have been used in only one mass shooting; that police in that shooting could still hear the gunshots and run toward them; that witnesses could hear the shots and run from them; and that suppressors are legal in 42 states (which only magnifies their infrequent use in crime) is reminiscent of the way bump stocks were banned after they were used only once in a crime. Ironically, the one criminal use of bump stocks, and the criminal use of suppressors, were related in that the accessories were legally purchased both instances, then used against citizens in a situation where the citizens could not shoot back.

This doesn’t even begin to touch the risk he faces, and there may be no way to mitigate the risk even now.

First of all, let me say that if suppressors completely silenced a gun shot, there still wouldn’t be a basis for banning them.  “Shall not be infringed” means what it says, and you and I know it.  I just hate it when people stipulate the high ground to the opposition, inasmuch as admitting that in certain circumstances it just may be a good idea to regulate something-or-other.

Trump has already alienated gun owners with: “Take them first, follow due process later”, his choice of AG, his choice of ATF head, his bump stock ban, and now his statement of hatred for suppressors.  With his bump stock ban he turned more than half a million peaceable men into felons overnight with the stroke of a pen.

He thinks, or he has been told by his idiot advisors, that stunts to appease the Fudds will fix his problems with being a gun control advocate.  His idiot advisors are wrong in the superlative degree, and he will find that out in little more than a year.

But I said that “it wouldn’t surprise me to see a bill pass the House and Senate headed for Trump’s desk to outlaw them completely, something that is no more than a muffler intended to save the hearing of target shooters and sportsmen.”

True to form, when the controllers see an opening and a weakness, they’re waiting to pounce.

Gun silencers like the one used in a recent lethal shooting in Virginia Beach would be banned under legislation that U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey introduced Friday.

The Democrat unveiled the legislation at news conference in Trenton alongside Democratic Trenton Mayor Reed Gusciora and representatives from the gun-control group Moms Demand Action.

Well, Mr. 3D-chess is in a pickle now, yes?  He’s gone on record saying that he hates suppressors, and that they are looking at what can be done.  The democrats have the House, and effectively the controllers hold the Senate.  They’ll send him a bill, and you can count on it.  What will he do then?

If he signs it, he will finish the alienation of the balance of the gun control crowd.  There are many more suppressor owners than bump stock owners.  If he doesn’t sign it, he’ll be pointed out as an inauthentic liar.

Does he even care at this point which it is?