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Don’t get me wrong. I wouldn’t trust Donald Trump to cash a twenty, never mind defend and extend Americans’ natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms. But the Our Principles anti-Trump ad above misrepresents The Donald’s views on guns by slicing out an unrepresentative bit out of a larger Town Hall-type encounter on MSNBC. Here’s the transcript of the entire exchange [via factcheck.org] . . .

Question: Mr. Trump, I’m an avid outdoorsman from upstate New York where your new golf courses are going. I’m very proud of my Second Amendment right to bear arms. If you’re elected, would you uphold this right, or do you see it as a societal ill?

Trump: Well, I think you have to have the right to have a gun. Now, I hate the concept of guns, I’m not in favor of it, except for one thing: the bad guys are going to have them. So …

Matthews: Do you have a gun?

Trump: I do.

Matthews: Do you keep it near you?

Trump: Depending on where I am, yes, I have it in different—I actually have a couple of guns. And I believe you need it.

You know what, if everybody would just give it up, the bad ones, the good ones and everybody in the middle, no guns, I love it — but it’s not going to happen. The good ones, you go into a licensing — the good ones are going to — are they going to do everything by the book? They get rid of the guns. So now the good folks are sitting out there with no protection, and the bad guys have the guns. I don’t like that. So I am in favor of the ability to have a gun.

All’s fair in love and war and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign certainly qualifies for both categories. But as suspect as Mr. Trump’s motives are, as much as I worry that he would play Let’s Make a Deal with our gun rights, it’s unfair to fault his general support for firearms freedom. Especially when you play dirty tricks to do so.

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66 COMMENTS

    • The only question is will the R’s contest Cruz as well as Trump at the convention…

      I am 95% sure they will stump the Trump, but only about 70% sure they’ll pass over Ted for some pre-purchased tool like Ryan or Mitten. I would have added the Rube and Jeb! (Do NOT say his last name, for the love of God), but they couldn’t even win in their own state, so not likely.

      Only time will tell. I hope the RNC contests both, then maybe people will finally realize we are not behind the wheel of this Republic.

      • If I had to guess, I would say they would give it to Cruz and swallow the pill. They hate the man but he’s not a party killer and they are in the business of keeping the party alive over anything else. It give the semblance of the electoral process too since he was the runner up and they had the straw poll to cite as well.

        • I think you under estimate the GOP’s idiocy.

          They support open borders for cheap labor, but cannot see further then their wallet in the present to realize immigrants tend to vote Dem. Think about that, GOP has no issues with importing people who will vote them out off office.

          So, do not give them too much credit, friend.

        • RockOnHellChild:

          Oh they are idiots that is for sure. No one can shoot themselves in the foot like the GOP, just look at the last two candidates that have been put up, I guess I’m just hoping and praying at this point. I know that Trump can’t win and giving it to a random like Mitt or Jeb is going to throw the country into pandemonium.

      • My prediction, and you heard it here first: If it goes to a brokered convention and Trump does not get the nomination he will run as a third party, siphon off Republican votes, and hand the presidency to Hillary. If he gets the nomination he will pull some ridiculous stunt on the campaign trail or in a debate that will ensure he cannot win the election and Hillary still gets to White House.

        I don’t trust this guy, can you tell?

        If Trump makes a third party run then Cruz has no chance of beating the Democrat candidate.

        • First of all, you ain’t first. Second of all, it’s already too late for Trump to run a third party campaign, as many states have “sore loser” laws, which require an early application to get on their state ballots. Not happening.

      • Isn’t Cruz the guy who does just about anything his 4 main contributors tell him too, including flip-floping? One of the biggest critiques of Cruz I’ve come across is that he was bought and sold going into the race. If all you watch is pro-republican media you aren’t as likely to get a true critique of republican candidates, same goes for the Dem’s side.

        • Going into the race Jeb certainly had the power of money and donors behind him more than anyone else, people really werent giving Cruz much attention in the donor department early on so saying that he was bought and paid for isn’t entirely accurate. In addition, if your critique of Cruz is that he has flopped on some issues I would say that is fair with proper evidence but we do know for a fact that the Orange One has flopped on gun rights rather significantly as well as going from a close family friend of the clinton family to supposedly the one that is going to be her biggest nightmare. Hard to swallow there for me if flip flopping is going to be on the table.

    • Good for you. Pony up to the RNC split the vote strategy designed to install Jeb with less than 35% of the base vote. Odd EVERY establishment candidate having their asses handed to them, now supports Cruz (non establishment establishment candidate), yet not one senator does. Kasich may have turned Ohio around but can not do delegate math, yet stays because if he drops…Ohio state RNC rules says his 66 delegates go to Trump. Then Micheal Steele former RNC chairman just said about Trump not getting the required delegates…everyone knows the rules, a candidate has to put together a campaign to win…except for the fact RNC changed the rules specifically to keep Ron Paul out (win 5 state rule now is win 8 ,back in 2014). RNC says their wide diversity of candidates shows broad spectrum of the Republican party…no it dilutes the peoples vote so the RNC can install their pick.

      Interesting read http://theconservativetreehouse.com/2015/08/22/tripwire-alert-evidence-now-exists-to-show-benefit-of-gope-road-mapped-splitter-strategy/

      • The RNC can re-write the rules before every convention. So, 40b from Paul could be easily side stepped.

        Being able to re-write the rules before the convention and the delegates do not have to vote as the people voted, how’d you like to pay poker under rules like that #votingmatters?

    • Trump’s Twitter posts alone are a complete laugh riot. I’m hoping he calls Hillary a c*nt before it is all over…

      The SJWs and White Knights will all have strokes – fingers crossed. ?

        • Hillary is going to be doing the under-oath testimony two-step-boogie for the FBI in the *very* near future.

          There are apparently a number of very high-ranking FBI personnel who will quit en-mass and head to a microphone if the FBI recommends and the DOJ chooses not to prosecute the HildaBeast.

          Make no mistake, there is only *ONE* thing Obama cares about right now, and that’s cementing his legacy.

          There is near *zero* voter enthusiasm for HRC, but the youth vote *will* show up for Bernie.

          My money says Barry will toss her fat old ass under the bus faster than the speed of light.

          So, yeah, it’s gonna be entertaining…

  1. Just gotta say, I wanted to follow ONE post on here, comment on ONE post only, no idea how to back out now, but I forward most emails to spam now, getting 40-50 emails daily all because I own a rifle discussed here that the op obviously wasn’t telling “truth” about, just saying this site seems to be trash, don’t comment unless you want an uncontrollable stream of crap mail.

    • That’s why you should keep one or two bogus email accounts set up for interwebs posting and buying stuff online.

      Never put your real deal email. Do you even Internet, bro?

    • Andrew in TTAG’s defense, I have been reading and posting for a very long time here, I get no spam from it. You may want to uncheck the Notify me of new posts.
      As for the subject here, I am not sure I trust trump to protect our second amendment rights. Cruz I am not sure on either. However i do not think Trump can win the general either. That’s just my 2 cents worth thought.

    • Andrew I never get TTAG e-mail. I get hundreds from all the other crap(FB) I do. I am also an OFWG who is decidedly non-technical(a Luddite as it were). Oh yeah TED CRUZ for president…

  2. I definitely think Ted Cruz would support our Second Amendment rights as POTUS. Trump is too ambiguous, as evidenced in the quoted transcript. Still I would have to “trust” Trump over Hilary Clinton, who has all but declared war on the firearms industry recently and who has no credibility with me at all. If Crazy Old Bernie gets the Democrat nomination,. I would “trust” Trump over him too. He is now beholden to all the communists who have supported him and would hear their cries to “Ban Guns!” before he’d hear our cries to leave the Second Amendment alone and actually repeal some of the infringements we now chafe under.

  3. Trump’s main problem is that he does not seem to have any principles that drive his opinions on anything. He floats from one argument to the next depending on his emotional state. Not good.

    Of course Hillary Clinton is the Wicked Witch. If elected, I fully expect her to do everything within her power – and many things that are not – to destroy the civil society.

    So based on that dilemma I would advise that each of us should decide how we are going to defend our natural and civil rights individually. It doesn’t look like we can count on the government or on the courts to preserve them for us.

  4. ” I wouldn’t trust Donald Trump to cash a twenty, never mind defend and extend Americans’ natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms.”

    I rest my case.

  5. Nope, the commercial is fair. Trump hates guns.

    Oh sure, he pays lip service to self defense, but he didn’t say he hates bad men or the evil that they do. It’s guns that he hates. He’s even pro-licensing. He’s hinting that he believes that certain restrictions are necessary, although eliminating guns is impossible. That’s logically inconsistent. Why burden good guys at all?

    Worse than that, it’s the very concept of guns that he hates. Firearms are a challenging concept, to be sure, because they’re a proxy for so many other issues like justice, self-reliance independence, and individuality. At the VERY best, Trump hates a concept which he doesn’t understand and about which he’s done zero serious thinking.

    He only reluctantly in that interview conceded, after admitting that he has guns, that he’s in favor og the ability to have a gun. The ability. Nothing about the pre-existing, God-given right. Just a government regulated ability. Sorry, Trump hates guns, or at least guns for the peons, anyway.

  6. I would trust him with a twenty because he’s a capitalist. Every capitalist understands that the customer must be satisfied, or the company will go out of business. He’s even had a few of his businesses fail so he’s seen it firsthand. I trust him on immigration because he’s a nationalist. A “National Capitalist,” like Ike. I trust him with gun rights because he’ll have nothing to gain from selling us out; not votes, not admiration, not legacy, all of the things he actually cares about.

    Most of all, a Trump win would demoralize the playdough mafia into oblivion. That alone might be worth it, to me.

    • They should move your post to the main page tomorrow and title it “Inside the twisted mind of a Trump supporter.”

      You trust him on immigration? To build that wall, huh? And make Mexico pay for it, how, exactly? A wall….lol. You DO know that just four years ago Trump characterized Romney’s plan for mere self-deportation of illegal aliens as being “mean spirited”, don’t you? If self deportation is mean spirited, then building a wall to keep another nation’s people out and sticking them with the bill is what? By Trump’s standards, it’d be a hell of a lot worse than self deportation. Face it: Trump’s playing the pseudo-populist card, just to get votes, with no intention of following through, and you fell for it.

      On gun rights, he’s expressed no interest in expanding liberty. He won’t even say whether he supports concealed carry at the GOP convention! He’s for all ki ds of infringements, from licensing to the so-called “assault weapons ban.” He struts around with his NY carry license that only the chosen ones can get. Meanwhile, he’s never said a word about rectifying NY’s draconian gun laws and expanding the rights he enjoys to others. He doesn’t give a damn about your gun rights. He’ll trade them away in his relentless pursuit of the Deal. Have you heard his remarks about limiting free speech and the press and religion? Your rights are his pawns.

      His business career means jack squat. He cares about the customer? Sure, so long as the customer has leverage over him and is prepared to use it. Who’s his customer once he’s elected? The people? He has nothing but contempt for the people. He’s boasted how he could stand on Fifth Avenue and murder someone and the People would still support him. Listening to you, he may be right. That’s all the more reason to keep that megalomaniac away from power.

      • Trump WILL make the Mexican, Hondurans, El Salvadoran’s etc. pay for the wall by taxing “remittances” you know the “electronic transfers” the illegal aliens send back home by “Western Union”-type businesses, last year Mexico alone siphoned $20 billion out of OUR economy. The fact is these parasites send 3/5th’s or more of their pay “back home”, that’s why they live twenty (20) or more to a three bedroom apartment, they contribute nearly nothing to our economy and the manoey they send home is used by stuff like food produced in their own country.

        As for firearms and the 2nd Amendment I trust Trump. Why? Because his two sons, Eric and Don Jr. are his closest advisors and they are firearms enthusiasts so much so that they even reload. Trump acknowledged the restrictions on carrying across state lines and has promised to sign “National Concealed Carry” if/when the GOP introduces, passes it in both houses and places it on his Oval Office desk.

        Just for the fact Trump is against illegal aliens, against importing ten of thousands of Moslems, for National Concealed Carry, politically incorrect and that the Liberals despise him he will get my vote.

        Now buckle up, it’s going to be a hell of a ride, can you imagine the level of butthurt among “the Left” under President Donald J. Trump? It’ll be glorious times for us.

  7. 1) Trump is a real estate investor in NYC, of course he is going to kiss liberal politician a$$ and grease liberal politician palm. It’s not what you know, it’s who you paid off. And Clinton was an influential NYC Sentor, so yeah, you know Trump was all up in her butt, so he could gain favoritism. It’s the business game, folks.

    2) If you trust ANY politician with your right, then you must not have been paying much attention for the last, oh, I don’t know couple hundred years. It’s a ping pong game of who can f*ck over the American people harder. Don’t trust any of them.

    • Amen brother. Id go so far as to say “they” allready know whos the next president will be. And if you think about it, the founding fathers whom claimed freedom and justice for all, owned slaves and slaughtered native americans

      • Not all. The founding fathers had wildly different views on many things, including slavery. Benjamin Franklin freed all of his slaves and became an abolitionist.

  8. Good. I couldn’t be more pleased. Trump is punishment to the media and Washington. People don’t give a fuck what he is. He’s not a conservative or libturd. Washington has earned this beating, and very many people have been eagerly awaiting this. Are you not entertained?

  9. I trust Trump on guns more than I trust Cruz on just about anything. It’s not that he’s just a pathological liar, an evangelical zealot, that he is bought and paid for by his wife’s employer or he is a second generation Cuban/Canadian misfit.

    The reason I don’t support him is that he is such a beta male that he pays women for sex.

  10. With out reading one response. If you want to give Hillary the election.
    Be against Trump.
    Im a Cruz guy but he doesn’t stand a snowballz chance in hell of getting elected.
    As I see it. The republicans are handing away the White House. Its a done deal.
    As long as they fight each other its over already. Even though she belongs in jail. She wont be indicted or even charged with anything. If it was any of us. We would already be wearing orange jumpsuits.

    • Hillary only wins the Dem side if she can continue to suppress her voter fraud/manipulation successfully and avoid a recommendation to indict for the email thing.

  11. I’ve been hearing that Trump is getting sizeable support from Blue-Collar-Democrats who think Bernie represents the old loony left and Hillary represents traditional small-town Democrat corruption, nepotism, and cronyism.

    If (and possibly when) Trump wins the presidency, he will discover like Barry did there are constraints known as Congress and The Constitution.

    • That is what baffles me the most.

      Those Blue-collar Dem voters are right there for the RNC.

      For free.

      They don’t want the crap the dems are selling.

      JUST TAKE THEM!

      (Channeling the ghost of John Belushi)

      But, Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

      (Slamming head into a concrete wall in frustration. Repeatedly. Ow!)

    • Sanders does not represent the “old loony left.” “Socialist” does not mean “Communist Socialist” just like “Marxist” does not mean “Stalinist Marxist.” Before anybody decries socialism as a concept that could not fit with democratic capitalism if implemented correctly, everybody wants their Medicare to be there for them when they get old right? That’s a socialist concept and the money is there real easy if we concentrate on re-building the U.S. instead of shitholes like Iraq or Afghanistan. I’m not saying we don’t owe something to the good people over there, but we don’t need the oil or the minerals or the opium that bad and we can’t help them if we can’t help ourselves first.

      • How about we just don’t go to war, and I keep my money? Socialism doesn’t work, there are hundreds of case samples showing it doesn’t work. Even the Scandinavian countries have begun deregulating, and becoming more open to the free market. Not everything the government does is socialism, and we don’t need socialism in this country. The last thing we need is a bigger government exercising more control for “our own good.”

        The last thing we need is a socialist who is comfortable denying citizens their right to own a firearm, and supports bills that would strip people of due process.

      • You must have a lot of student debt. If Sanders were to be elected and successfully implement his policies, it would be the equivalent of a 9% pay cut for the middle class so I don’t see that happening. The fix is in for Clinton. Might as well start getting used to it.

      • The only successes of socialism in Europe is built on the U.S. paying for their national security for the past 70 years. Like Thatcher said, Socialism only survives by of spending other peoples money and now the U.S. is beyond broke.

        Socialism only spends, it does not produce.
        Socialism w/o capitalism can’t last for a day.
        Socialism like cancer keeps growing until it kills its capitalist host.

  12. Thanks guys, didn’t notice the tags below, phone is hard to see on, politics are not my thing, but whoever is better for my favorite right as an American and will screw we the people the least, that’s the guy, and if he would put some .22lr rounds on the shelf PLEASE!!

  13. If Trump gets the nomination, he loses the election, no matter who the Dems throw at him, because most Americans will not vote for a demagogue. If Trump does not get the nomination, he will (rightfully) think he deserves it and run as an independent. Either way, the Dems win.

  14. Bernie Sanders is the best option for our country and anybody who doesn’t see that by now is simply misinformed. While he may not be the strongest on gun rights, he sure as fuck isn’t the weakest and not retarded enough to trample the 2nd, and if he hasn’t sold out in 40 years you can guess he really does mean what he says. If any of you guys are voting based on republican support for gun rights alone, remember the fucked up gun laws in California are that way largly due to the NRA and Ronald Reagan. I don’t dislike Trump nearly as much as other Sanders supporters, I’d totally have a beer with the dude, but slippery is not a quality i want in a president. He said it himself, he is a chameleon, that makes him a good business man, maybe, but a Chameleon for president whose entire life has revolved around making money? Not so sure.

    • Sanders for president, I’m not sure if it would harm us much in the next 4 years. The Established Left and Right probably will refuse to work with him. That would mean 4 years of “lame duck” with just Veto powers. One huge concern is Supreme Court Justice nominations. I fear the RNC not choosing Trump, he will run Independent and split the vote,I hope Sanders wins the Democratic nomination.

    • He straight up doesn’t support gun rights, and he voted on a bill to remove due process from gun owners who were placed on an arbitrary list.

    • Joshua is a product of multiple years of indoctrination by the Leftist seminary called US public education.

      Any parent sending their kid to school better understand that.

      I’m saving up to send my grandkids to faith based schools.

    • Do Bernie Sanders supporters know how our system of government works? You’re talking about a guy who wants to increase taxes, expand Medicare to everyone (single payer healthcare), free college for everyone, and so on and so forth. Guess what Bernie Sanders needs to accomplish that? New laws. Where do laws come from? CONGRESS! Do you Bernie supporters realize that everything that comes out of his mouth is dead on arrival in Congress? He won’t even get his ideas out of committee let alone to his desk for a signature. That’s the thing Democrats don’t get. Democrats are going to be the minority party in the House for GENERATIONS. The reason for this is because Democrat voters have segregated themselves into large urban areas. Democrats will need to move out into the suburbs and country in large numbers to turn red districts to blue districts. Democrat voters appear to be moving into large urban areas while Republican voters are moving out of those areas. This migration of people moving into areas where there are like-minded people only makes the Democrats’ problem winning districts outside of large urban areas more difficult.

  15. It doesnt matter who wins, nothing will change.I think this countrys policys are messed up. Americans fought in Korea and Vietnam to save the people from communism, then america turns around and buys chinese products? The job opportunitys that are availible are given to ileagel immigrants, its a mess, capitolism would work fine if America inported nothing.If you want Cruze, I hope he wins, if you want Sanders I hope he wins, Trump and Hiloraly the same, then youll see they changed nothing.

  16. I’d take anyone over Hillary. She is for all intents and purposes a Cenobite. Trump because I’d just love to see some SJW heads explode. Bernie because I think he’d be too ineffectual to go full Great Leap Forward on us.

  17. I listen to Trump speak and sometimes think the late comic, Prof. Irvin Corey has been resurrected and is running for President. I doubt any “seasoned” politician could say five different things in one sentence like Trump can.

  18. This ad misrepresents Trumps views? I don’t know if I would go that far, i think the ad is fair enough insofar as Trump is misrepresenting his own views to the Republican base. he’s not a conservative but he’s claiming to be one and some of my friends who are actual real conservatives are being duped and I wish they could see that.

    • No, he is getting about 40% support and…..

      half of that is a strange brew of rarely-voting unaffiliated voters and..

      the other half is gullible reupubs that are susceptible to “messaging”

      So that translates to about 20% of Repubs are for Trump. That aligns with the
      20% that believe in visiting Aliens and that Elvis is alive.

  19. I have to hand it to Republicans. Only in the Republican party can you take a sure victory and turn it around to a sure defeat. In election after election, the Republican playbook is to find the issue that Democrats are weakest and pick the guy who can’t run on that issue. In 2012, Republicans had a winning issue with Obamacare. Following the playbook, Republicans picked a candidate who could not run on the Republicans’ winning issue. Of all the candidates the Republicans could have picked, they went with Mitt Romneycare. Good job Republicans! Here we are four years later and Republicans have a very weak candidate to run against. Hillary Clinton’s unfavorable numbers are well above 50%. More than half the country doesn’t like her and doesn’t trust her. This should be a sure win for Republicans, but we should know better by now. Following the Republican playbook, they’re about to nominate someone who has actually managed to make Hillary Clinton look good. While Hillary’s unfavorable numbers are high, Trump’s are higher. There’s only one candidate that Americans dislike more than Hillary Clinton and that’s Donald Trump. Real Clear Politics’ average polling has Hillary beating Trump in a general election match by 12 points. I have to hand it to Republicans.

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