Who’s the Real Anti-Gun Radical Running for President?
When Trump says “The Second Amendment is on the ballot in November,” he is right.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is not a fan of the Bill of Rights provision that protects Americans’ natural right of self-defense.
She has campaigned to the left of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and hammered him for protecting the rights of gun owners in his home state of Vermont. If elected, it is clear that she will claim to support the Second Amendment while will taking actions to roll back those rights as far as a president can.
Donald Trump hammered Hillary for her stance on gun control when he argued over the weekend that “Crooked Hillary Clinton is the most anti-gun anti-Second Amendment ever to run for office.” He is spot on.
Hillary gave a gun control speech last week in which she rolled out her anti-gun agenda. In the past, she has called for Supreme Court justices to overturn two Supreme Court cases that protect the right to keep and bear arms. She merely pretends to support the Second Amendment while her campaign promises betray an intent to make that provision of the Constitution a dead letter of law.
Here are the facts:
According to Politifacts.com, Hillary has argued for the overturning one of the most important Second Amendment protection cases in our history:
Clinton said she disagrees with the the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller. In a 5-4 decision, the Court struck down Washington’s handgun ban and recognized that the Second Amendment applies to the individual’s right to bear arms.
‘The Supreme Court is wrong on the Second Amendment,’ she said in a leaked recording of a private fundraiser.
That case stands for the simple proposition that the Second Amendment is an individual right rather than a collective one. Although Politifacts.com ruled Donald Trump’s statement that “Hillary Clinton wants to abolish the Second Amendment” false, her position regarding Heller shows that she would effectively ignore the core meaning of the natural right of self-defense.
Hillary also endorsed a compulsory buyback program implemented in Australia. She said, “Australia is a good example.” That program would not pass constitutional scrutiny in the United States.
It is ironic that the fact checkers fall all over themselves to defend Hillary because she pays lip service to protecting the Second Amendment, yet she has never mapped out a plan to protect it. Hillary will follow President Obama’s lead in trying to pack the Supreme Court with nominees overtly hostile to gun rights while claiming that she supports the Second Amendment — don’t believe it.
According to her own website, Hillary has rolled out a number of proposals that will chip away at gun rights:
A proposal to shut down gun shows by forcing background checks to accompany sales between private citizens;
A proposal to allow trial lawyers to sue the gun industry into submission;
A reinstatement of the so called “assault weapons ban”;
Use of the error-filled terrorist watch list to disenfranchise law-abiding citizens who were put on the list by mistake and cannot get their names removed.
None of these proposals have a chance of passing if Congress stays in Republican hands. Democrats would be reluctant to go down the road of gun control if they take over for fear of being booted out of office in 2018. The Left rolls out polls that indicate support for some of these measures, yet voters have a say and they tend to vote against candidates who support gun control.
If Hillary is so supportive of the Second Amendment, where are her proposals to protect gun rights? She has none. In stark contrast, Donald Trump has a number of ideas to expand gun rights. Now some on the Right will look skeptically at Trump’s proposals, because he was a one-time supporter of some gun control ideas. Yet he is clearly superior on the issue to the overtly-hostile Hillary Clinton.
According to NBC News, Trump has proposed ideas to expand gun rights:
Throughout his campaign, Trump has called gun bans ‘a total failure,’ opposed an expansion of background checks and called for concealed carry permits to be valid across all 50 states.
Trump has voiced opposition to any weapons bans and has rolled out a list of Supreme Court nominees who are not hostile to the Second Amendment. Merrick Garland, President Obama’s pick, has a history of support for gun control. In 2000, Judge Garland supported the Clinton administration’s proposal to store gun-buyers’ records and tried to get the D.C. Circuit to reconsider the Heller case as it wound through the federal courts.
For those who treasure Second Amendment rights and don’t want to be playing defense for the next four years on Supreme Court nominees and gun control legislation, this fall’s election will have a significant impact on the government’s respect for the Bill of Rights. (For more from the author of “Who’s the Real Anti-Gun Radical Running for President?” please click HERE)
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