Second amendment policy platform details wide support for expanded background checks on gun sales – a measure Trump and the NRA are against

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Large majorities of both Republicans and Democrats support expanded background checks on private gun sales, including sales at gun shows, Donald Trump boasts on his campaign website.

It’s an odd statistic to find as part of Trump’s second amendment policy platform, since Trump himself opposes expanded background checks on gun sales.

It’s not clear why Trump’s website would tout the broad bipartisan support for a policy he and the National Rifle Association both oppose.

But the inclusion of a pro-gun control talking point in Trump’s policy platform once again raises the question of how well a candidate who once supported an assault weapon ban – and has fluctuated on almost all of his major policy positions – will deliver on his promised defense of gun rights if he is elected.

On his website, Trump’s “Constitution and Second Amendment” platform notes, regarding background checks, that “we need to fix the system we have and make it work as intended. What we don’t need to do is expand a broken system.”

Then, a little further down the same page, Trump’s platform cites and links to Pew Research survey results that found that “85% of the public – including large majorities of both Republicans (79%) and Democrats (88%) – favored making private gun sales and sales at gun shows subject to background checks. There was also bipartisan support for laws to prevent people with mental illness from purchasing guns.”

These statistics would seem like a better fit for the policy platform of his opponent, Hillary Clinton, who actually supports expanding federal background check laws to cover private gun sales, including private sales at gun shows and online.

A campaign spokeswoman did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The NRA, which just launched a new $6.5m pro-Trump television ad campaign, has repeatedly pushed back against survey results that suggest that even a majority of self-described NRA members favor expanded background checks. Trump doubled down to his opposition to expanded background checks in an official NRA Q&A last month.

What rights do Americans have to carry a gun?

Americans have the right to carry guns in public in all 50 states. Only a handful of states, including New York and California, require citizens to demonstrate a specific need for self-protection. ​in order to carry a gun. ​ Most states require that citizens get a permit to carry a concealed weapon, which often comes with gun safety training. But ten states, including Vermont, Maine, Arizona, Wyoming, and now Missouri, have “constitutional carry” no permit is needed to carry publicly. There are legal restrictions on carrying guns in some sensitive places – like schools, government buildings and bars – but even these laws are under attack.

A new Pew Research Center survey conducted in August found that 75%of Trump supporters said they favor background checks on private gun sales and sales at gun shows, as did 90% of Clinton supporters.

The NRA has invested heavily in supporting Trump’s campaign, an endorsement Trump has welcomed. The candidate has been enthusiastic in his praise for the NRA’s leaders, and has repeated the claim that Hillary will “abolish” or “virtually abolish” the second amendment. Trump has pledged to appoint a supreme court justice who will uphold the court’s pro-gun-rights record, and has endorsed national concealed carry permit reciprocity, a priority for gun rights advocates. He now says he opposes an assault weapon ban. (“The government has no business dictating what types of firearms good, honest people are allowed to own,” his policy platform now reads.)

“I will not let you down,” he promised NRA members in May. “Remember that, I will not let you down.”

At times, though, Trump’s rhetoric has seemed to veer from the NRA party line. After the mass shooting at Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Trump suggested if more people in the nightclub had been armed, “you wouldn’t have had the same kind of a tragedy”.

“No one thinks that people should go into a nightclub drinking and carrying firearms. That defies common sense. It also defies the law,” the NRA’s chief lobbyist, Chris Cox, said in an interview after Trump’s comments. Trump later tweeted: “When I said that if, within the Orlando club, you had some people with guns, I was obviously talking about additional guards or employees.”

Trump also suggested in the first presidential debate, as he did after Orlando, that he wanted to block people on government no-fly lists and watch lists from buying guns, a comment that left it unclear whether he might agree more with Hillary Clinton’s position on the issue than with the NRA. Cox said after Orlando that any apparent tension between Trump’s views and the NRA’s position was “a media-created diversion”.

In August, even gun rights advocates criticized Trump’s insinuations of violence when he said, in an offhand remark during a speech, that only “second amendment people” might be able to do something to stop Hillary Clinton from appointing supreme court justices if she were elected.

At the NRA’s annual meeting this May, some members were enthusiastic Trump supporters. Others described Trump as unprincipled and untrustworthy, with some staunch gun rights advocates concerned about whether he would follow through on his promises to protect gun rights if elected.

In a Q&A recently published on the NRA’s website, Cox asks Trump: “First, do you support so-called ‘universal’ background checks?”

“There can never be a so-called ‘universal’ background check, because criminals obviously ignore gun laws. That’s what makes them criminals,” Trump is quoted as responding.

Trump is also quoted as saying that “background checks haven’t stopped the mass shooters we’ve seen.”

Both the NRA and gun control advocates have been pushing to have the two candidates address gun control at Monday’s second presidential debate in St Louis.

Gun control advocates have been pushing for a question on expanded background checks, asking the candidates: “Would you support requiring criminal background checks for all gun sales?”

The NRA has been encouraging its supporters to push for the question: “How will you ensure the second amendment is protected?”