Every election season, Democrats run as anti-2A candidates during the primaries and, then, tend to soften their public stance when trying to court the rest of the country to get elected.
On the flip side, Republicans tend to campaign as pro-2A candidates and, too often, fail to live up to that promise once in office.
And I wish those generalizations were limited to just members of Congress, but that’s been the case with most presidents during my lifetime, too.
Except one, according to at least one commentator. Tyler Yzaguirre, the founder and president of the Second Amendment Institute, argues that Trump is “America’s most pro-Second Amendment President.” Yzaguirre writes,
Ronald Reagan signed the Firearm Owners’ Protection Act; George W. Bush signed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. Both delivered important protections through Congress. President Trump’s distinction is different: he has made defending the Second Amendment an ongoing executive-branch responsibility, not merely a legislative objective.
That distinction matters because private citizens and advocacy groups have long borne the cost of challenging firearms restrictions. President Trump’s Justice Department has begun taking on those battles directly. His first-term bump-stock ban remains a legitimate criticism, but it does not erase the breadth of his current approach.
The historical test is not who delivered the most stirring promises. It is who changed how government acts. By turning federal authority toward challenging restrictions rather than merely defending them, President Trump has built the strongest case yet for his place as America’s most pro-Second Amendment president.
Yzaguirre makes an excellent point: signing legislation into law protecting our Second Amendment rights is important, but changing the way that the federal government’s departments interpret and handle the implementation and enforcement of codes and laws is at least as, if not more, important as putting the laws on the books.
Without a pro-2A bureaucracy in place to do the right things in regards to gun laws, gun rights, and enforcement, the laws themselves would be meaningless, and I appreciate President Trump’s efforts to protect our 2A rights.
