Donald Trump is trying to be the embodiment of a stereotypical Republican. On all the matters that matter Trump seems to pander to the Republican base with a heavy hand, including the issue of guns. South Carolina was host to a Trump rally last night and the presidential candidate decided to talk a little bit about firearms, capitalizing on Hillary Clinton’s recent comments on the topic in order to gain some points from pro-2A voters. While the gun-friendly comments are welcome, there was a moment where he stepped even further over the “alarmist” line than the NRA . . .
From CNN:
“You know, the President is thinking about signing an executive order where he wants to take your guns away. You hear about this? Not gonna happen. That won’t happen. But that’s a tough one, I think that’s a tough one for him to do,” Trump told the crowd. “There’s plenty of executive orders being signed, you know that. And we can’t let that go on.”
The “Obama’s going to take your guns” line is a well worn chestnut that the NRA and others rely upon to drum up supporters, and while it’s probably valid that Obama wants to make confiscation a reality, it probably isn’t as valid that he’s considering doing it by executive fiat. In fact, every move that Obama has made so far indicates that he’s willing to work extremely hard for even insignificant increases in gun control so long as the legislative branch and doesn’t originate with the executive at all.
The idea that an executive order is coming to confiscate guns is about as likely as Obama revealing that little green men landed in Roswell, New Mexico. But it probably works to convince low information voters to rally to the Trump campaign. An effective, if factually inaccurate, campaign claim. In other words par for the course.