The Second Amendment is now front and center in the election according to a USA Today column focused on the vacancy Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death created on the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS).
The column, written by Kevin Johnson, notes that President Trump was urging Americans to vote for him in order to save the Second Amendment prior to the current vacancy on the court. And now that the vacancy is present, Trump is using it to stress the “urgency” of having him in office to choose justices who will protect gun rights.
For example, on Friday in Minnesota Trump said, “Sleepy Joe is gonna take your guns away.” And on Sunday, after reports on Ginsburg’s death had saturated the news cycle for a weekend, Trump tweeted, “SAVE YOUR SECOND AMENDMENT, VOTE TRUMP.”
Johnson noted that gun control advocates have also upped their efforts in the wake of Ginsburg’s death, asking their followers to rally and vote in order to prevent the assembling of SCOTUS justices who may strike down gun controls around the country.
After Ginsburg’s death, Brady Campaign president Kris Brown said, “Make no mistake, gun safety is on the ballot in November.”
Brown lamented that work Ginsburg did as a “trailblazer” could be “overshadowed by the reality that her seat, and potentially the fate of sensible gun laws in America, now rests in the hands of (Republican) Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and President Trump… Those laws and the hard-earned progress that activists and concerned Americans have won for generations are now in peril.”
One caveat with the article is that it downplays Biden’s gun control, suggesting Trump overstates matters when he claims Biden will “obliterate it to a point of no return or actually terminate it.”
On February 24, 2020, Breitbart News reported Biden using a South Carolina speech to reference gun manufacturers and say, “I’m going to take you down.” He said this while making clear his intention to repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), which shields gun makers from lawsuits tied to criminal use of guns that were legally made and legally sold.
On August 11, 2020–the day Biden announced Kamala Harris as his running mate–Breitbart News reported that the two aligned in their opposition to PLCAA and in their commitment to an “assault weapons” ban, universal background checks, preventing teachers from being armed for classroom defense, and enacting government-mandated buybacks of certain firearms.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.
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