2015: Donald Trump Campaigned Against ‘Expanding a Broken System’ of Gun Background Checks

While campaigning to secure the Republican presidential nomination, Donald Trump released a position paper asserting his opposition to “expanding a broken system” of background checks.

The document, posted September 18, 2015, is no longer available. But CBS News copied and published large portions of it, including the section on background checks.

Here is the background checks section:

Every time a person buys a gun from a federally licensed gun dealer – which is the overwhelming majority of all gun purchases – they go through a federal background check. Too many states are failing to put criminal and mental health records into the system – and it should go without saying that a system’s only going to be as effective as the records that are put into it. What we need to do is fix the system we have and make it work as intended. What we don’t need to do is expand a broken system.

On August 5, 2019, Breitbart News reported Trump floated the idea of “strong background checks” in the wake of the El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, shootings. He said, “Republicans and Democrats must come together and get strong background checks, perhaps marrying this legislation with desperately needed immigration reform. We must have something good, if not GREAT, come out of these two tragic events!”

On August 7, 2019, Breitbart News reported Trump reiterated his desire Congress come together for background checks. The Associated Press quoted Trump saying, “There’s a great appetite, and I mean a very strong appetite, for background checks. And I think we can bring up background checks like we’ve never had before.”

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 directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.