Is Donald Trump TOO protective of the 2nd Amendment? YOU be the judge!
The political obstacles to stopping the string of mass shootings in our country remain significant. And considering all eyes are on Trump right now, we MUST consider what he HAS done and what he PLANS to do regarding gun laws if he wins this race for the White House.
Former President Obama has stated in the past, “This is a political choice that we make to allow this to happen every few months in America. We collectively are answerable to those families who lose their loved ones because of our inaction.”
That’s the dilemma our country’s next president faces right now. How long will momentum for action dominate Washington politics? And how far is Donald Trump truly prepared to go? Let’s check the facts… Here are 6 things Donald Trump HAS done to gun laws.
He side-lined a rule that would have prohibited those with a severe mental illness from purchasing guns
Federal law bans the sale of a firearm to any person who has been “committed to a mental institution” or “adjudicated as a mentally defective.” Those terms are old and, quite frankly, unclear if you think about it, resulting in gaping loopholes in our gun laws.
In 2014, the DOJ presented a rule to fix this issue and prohibit certain groups of people from purchasing guns, including those “found incompetent to stand trial in local, state, and military courts,” “committed to an outpatient mental institution,” and “found guilty but mentally ill by a court.”
This significant change would have kept guns out of the hands of dangerous individuals because of severe mental illness. But the gun lobby resisted the change. What did President Trump do? He stopped it. After side-lining the DOJ’s proposed rule, Trump went even further.
Working with Republicans in Congress and encouraged by the gun lobby, he repealed a rule that permitted the Social Security Administration to provide information to the national background check system about those who had been deemed unfit to handle their financial matters and unable to work based on a severe mental illness.
He altered the definition of “fugitive from justice” to define who can buy a firearm
Any person “who is a fugitive from justice” is forbidden from possessing or buying a firearm under federal law.
For the federal background check system for gun sales, the FBI had long portrayed “fugitive from justice” to include those with an outstanding arrest warrant.
Nevertheless, within thirty days of his presidency, Trump’s Department Of Justice directed the FBI’s background check operators to limit that definition. It now only blocks a person with an arrest warrant from buying a firearm if they:
-Fled a state.
-Did so to avoid prosecution.
-Were subject to impending criminal prosecution.
So what resulted from this? More people with outstanding arrest warrants, including for dangerous offenses, can now buy guns.
By mandating that an individual leave a state with the distinct intent to avoid prosecution, the new definition would only stop those with a distinct state of mind from purchasing guns.
Now, let’s get real: That’s extremely tricky to prove. Furthermore, Trump’s move isn’t just detrimental; it’s unlawful.
The definition change is a long way away from long-standing practice by the FBI, and it came without warning or an opportunity for input from the public, much less any explanation of how to prove the fugitive’s state of mind.
That’s a violation of the Administrative Procedure Act.
He stopped a proposal to require all gun makers to sell child safety devices in stores where firearms are sold
Federal law mandates that gun merchants affirm that safety devices for gun storage will be available at any location in which firearms are sold.
Back in 2016, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives submitted a rule to close two regulatory loopholes that undermined this law.
The first: ATF rules fail to explicitly demand that gun manufacturers make safety devices available to buy, even when dealing directly with customers on their premises.
The second loophole: ATF rules fail to explicitly demand that the safety devices be compatible with the guns being s. The gun lobby objected to closing these dangerous loopholes, calling the proposed gun safety rule expensive and burdensome.
So, once he took office, Trump pulled the plug on these common-sense protections. But reducing child safety protections isn’t the only way Trump is “filling the coffers” of the gun industry.
He also suggests deregulating the export of assault weapons regardless of the fact that there has been wide recognition that this class of weaponry is “the primary means of death, injury, and destruction in military AND civil conflicts around the world.”
But, as experts warn, this is hardly just a small issue that affects individuals in distant countries. These small arms can “easily fall into the hands of those who seek to undermine US national security.”
Let’s talk about Trump prosecuting firearm offenses
Since we’re on the topic of firearms, in his remarks regarding the mass shootings in Texas and Ohio a few years ago, Donald Trump boasted about his administration’s record of prosecuting individuals who violated federal gun laws, stating, “We prosecuted a record number of firearms offenses.”
And we shouldn’t fail to mention that there has been a significant increase in the victorious prosecution of firearms offenses for each year Trump was president.
In fact, if we were to look back at fiscal year 2019, we would find that the Department of Justice successfully prosecuted 10,623 defendants of firearms offenses.
That’s the most since at least 1992, based on a review of the department’s annual statistical reports since fiscal year 1992. The previous high was at 10,466 in fiscal year 2006.
… But before we get too excited, continue reading to learn about what else Trump did!
Trump got rid of 500,000 records from the federal background check system
We keep bringing up that federal background check system, don’t we? Well, buckle up because the news doesn’t get any better!
Trump didn’t just change the definition of “fugitives from justice”: the Administration also terminated all existing records in the federal background check system that identified fugitives who would be banned from buying firearms.
When Trump took office in 2017, the background check system contained entries for almost 500,000 people who had been identified as “fugitives from justice.” They amended all these records and, even to this day, have only restored about 1,000 entries under that category.
The FBI must maintain this critically important database, including its regulations. The Administration’s irresponsible conduct in purging these records exemplifies a failure to meet its responsibilities under federal law.
But eliminating these records isn’t the only way Trump attempted to undermine the federal background check system. His proposed budget would also cut funding to aid states in uploading necessary records to the background check system by a whopping 16%.
That funding is crucial to ensure guns aren’t sold to those prohibited from owning them, including dangerous offenders.
For instance, after obtaining background check funding, the state of Connecticut could identify and upload more than 50,000 records for people who qualified as “fugitives from justice.”
Those records were also a part of the huge data purge, and Trump’s proposed budget cut would make it unlikely to be returned.
So what’s your take on the matter? Are Trump’s views on gun laws good or bad for our nation? Pease feel free to share your thoughts with Trending Now in the comments section.
For more on gun control policies, check out: Few Commonsense Gun Reform Measures: A Part to a Safer America
And if you’re following this election as closely as we are, we highly recommend also reading about: Biden Dropped Out and Now Supports Harris. What Will Happen Next?
