Trump urges gun owners to vote, calls himself ‘best friend’ of NRA
DALLAS — Former President Trump urged gun owners to vote as he addressed thousands of members of the National Rifle Assn., which officially endorsed him just before he took the stage Saturday at the group’s annual meeting in Dallas.
“We’ve got to get gun owners to vote,” Trump said. “I think you’re a rebellious bunch. But let’s be rebellious and vote this time.”
Trump has claimed that the 2nd Amendment is “under siege” and called himself “the best friend gun owners have ever had in the White House” as the United States faces record numbers of deaths due to mass shootings. There were 42 mass killings and 217 deaths in 2023, one of the deadliest years on record.
A visibly frustrated but somber president said in a speech Tuesday evening that he was ‘sick and tired’ of mass shootings and that it was ‘time to act.’
President Biden’s administration has taken steps to combat gun violence, including a rule that aims to close a loophole that has allowed tens of thousands of guns to be sold every year by unlicensed dealers who do not perform background checks to ensure the buyer is not legally prohibited from having a firearm.
Biden has criticized Trump for remarks he made this year after a school shooting in Iowa. Trump called the incident “very terrible” but said, “We have to get over it. We have to move forward.”
Campaigning in Minnesota on Friday, during a break in his hush money criminal trial, Trump said, “You know, it’s an amazing thing. People that have guns, people that legitimately have guns, they love guns and they use guns for the right purpose, but they tend to vote very little, and yet they have to vote for us.”
Biden has made curtailing gun violence a major part of his reelection campaign, creating the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, overseen by Vice President Kamala Harris. He has urged Congress to ban assault weapons.
President Biden promised in an address Thursday that his call for Congress to pass laws to curb gun violence was “not about taking away anyone’s guns.”
Harris said in a statement before Trump’s NRA appearance, “At a time when guns are the No. 1 cause of death for children and teens in America, Donald Trump is catering to the gun lobby and threatening to make the crisis worse if reelected.”
Harris said she and Biden “will continue to take on the gun lobby to keep Americans safe, while Donald Trump will continue to sacrifice our kids’ and communities’ safety to keep these special interests happy.”
When Trump was president, there were moments when he pledged to strengthen gun laws. After a shooting at a high school in Parkland, Fla., that killed 17 people and wounded 17, Trump said he would be “very strong on background checks.” He claimed he would stand up to the NRA but later backpedaled, saying there was “not much political support.”
While Trump sees strong support in Texas, Democrats in the state think they have a chance to flip a Senate seat in November, with U.S. Rep. Colin Allred leading an underdog campaign to unseat Republican Ted Cruz. No Democrat has won a statewide office in Texas in 30 years, the longest streak of its kind in the country.
Adriana Gomez Licon writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Jill Colvin contributed to this report from New York.
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