Donald Trump has secured an endorsement from the National Rifle Association, vowing to protect gun rights in a nation still divided on the issue.
“We’ve got to get gun owners to vote,” Trump said at the NRA Convention on May 18. “I think you’re a rebellious bunch. But let’s be rebellious and vote this time.”
Trump said the contentious Second Amendment was “very much on the ballot.” He said President Joe Biden is “coming for your guns.” The US ended with 42 mass killings and 217 deaths, making it one of the deadliest years on record.
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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.
Biden has urged Congress to ban so-called assault weapons. His administration also created the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention overseen by Vice President Kamala Harris.
“Tonight, Donald Trump confirmed that he will do exactly what the NRA tells him to do — even if it means more death, more shootings, and more suffering,” Biden spokesman Ammar Moussa said in response to Trump’s comments.
But Trump said the Second Amendment is “under siege.” He says he is the “best friend gun owners have ever had in the White House.”
Trump, during his speech, also slammed independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., calling him “radical left” and “a disaster,” and noting that Kennedy had once called the NRA a ”terror group.”
“Don’t think about it. Don’t waste your vote,” Trump said. “He calls you a terrorist group, and I call you the backbone of America.”
Kennedy later said in a Fox News interview that he didn’t remember his 2018 tweet. “I don’t consider them a terror group, and I support the Second Amendment,” he said.
Some of Trump’s comments have been criticised. After a school shooting in Iowa, Trump called it a “very terrible” incident, but that “we have to get over it. We have to move forward.”
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Trump pledged to stengthen gun laws when he was president.
He claimed he would stand up to the NRA and its postion on background checks, telling survivors of a mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida in which 17 people were killed and 17 more injured that he would be “very strong” on the policy.
He later backpedalled, saying there was “not much political support.”
The latest available data from Gun Violence Archive says there have been 159 mass shootings in the state this year, 11 mass murders and over 6,200 homicides.