When candidate Donald Trump stood atop the stage at last year’s National Rifle Association convention in Louisville, Kentucky, the gun world felt a proverbial “thrill up its leg.”
For the previous eight years, gun rights advocates, gun owners, and the firearms industry had been fighting an all-out war with the Obama administration and its allies in Congress, the media, and the courts to fend off the constant chipping away of the Second Amendment. From magazine limits to ammunition bans to attacks on the character of gun owners, it seemed each day brought a new skirmish.
But fate had delivered a savior, many thought. Trump was unabashedly pro-gun, pro self-defense and pro-Second Amendment, and wasn’t cowed by previous Republicans’ inclinations to downplay the role of lawful firearms ownership in the protection of American society. When he received the full-throated endorsement of the NRA, gun owners knew they had a candidate they could get behind.
So it’s no surprise that when Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton — who’d once hinted that Australian-style gun bans might be a valid option for U.S. gun control — the pro-gun world went wild. No longer would each day bring a potential new fight. Finally, gun owners had a president in the White House who bragged about his concealed-carry license, for crying out loud.
The victory even prompted the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) leaders in the “deep state” to rethink their enforcement of outdated gun laws, like suppressor regulation, the import ban on AK-47 rifles, and restrictions on some now-ubiquitous ammunition. Gun owners believed a new day had dawned.
by Christian Lowe
