Former President Donald J. Trump on Saturday accepted the support of the National Rifle Association, a strong ally of gun owners and gun businesses, claiming the right to bear arms is “under siege” under President Biden. He declared himself to be.
“If we have four more years of the Biden administration, they're going to come and take away our guns,” Trump headlined the NRA's annual meeting in Dallas.
Trump addressed the group while on trial in Manhattan on criminal charges of falsifying business records related to hush-money payments to porn stars. On stage in Dallas, he claimed he “knows better than anyone” what it's like to be disenfranchised.
“In my second term, I will reverse all of Biden's attacks on the Second Amendment,” he said to thunderous applause.
The annual gun rights rally has been held since Trump's last appearance in Houston in 2022, days after a mass shooting killed 19 children and two adults at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. It also seemed much quieter. Governor Greg Abbott and senior senator John Cornyn did not attend that year's convention, citing other commitments. Several prominent musical performers reportedly withdrew their participation out of respect for the victims and their families.
The NRA, America's most prominent gun rights organization and once a powerful political force, has found itself in limbo. In recent years, the group has been plagued by loss of membership, setbacks, defections, and internal strife. In February, a Manhattan jury found that the leaders had committed years of financial fraud and corruption.
On Saturday, speakers pushed back against suggestions that the group is in decline. “No matter what you hear, we are strong,” said Andrew Arulanandam, the group's interim chief executive.
Abbott, who drew the ire of Texas Democrats after Thursday pardoning a man convicted of fatally shooting a protester at a 2020 Black Lives Matter demonstration, drew a standing ovation when he took to the stage. Ta. He primarily used his remarks to condemn President Biden's policies, which he claimed have led to “open borders, gun control, riots on college campuses, and the destruction of constitutional rights.”
“Donald Trump is the antidote to Joe Biden,” Abbott said, calling on NRA members to support the former president's campaign. “No president has fought harder to protect Second Amendment rights.”
Earlier in the day, dozens of people had been rallying outside Dallas City Hall to demand stricter gun laws. Gun safety groups displayed T-shirts with the names of people killed by gun violence in Dallas County. Participants pointed to opinion polls showing a majority of the public supports many of the security measures they had called for, such as stronger background checks.
“They don't care that they're afraid to go to church and they might get shot,” Texas state Rep. Ana Maria Ramos told the crowd, calling for states to block stricter gun safety laws. He blamed Congressmen and Congressmen.
Jill Brown, 66, a former school nurse, sat in a lawn chair on City Hall Square and said she worries about the long-term psychological effects of mass shootings and active shooter drills on students.
According to the Associated Press, there were 42 mass shootings in the United States last year, killing 217 people, making it one of the deadliest years on record. On May 6, 2023, a gunman killed eight people at Allen Premium Outlets in north Dallas.
On Saturday, the Trump campaign labeled a white St. Louis couple who pleaded guilty to pointing a gun at black protesters marching in front of their home in 2020 and were later pardoned by Missouri's Republican governor as “Gun Owners for Trump.” Nominated by the Union.
At the NRA meeting, Trump, whose campaign fundraising has been slow in Texas, called on gun owners to head to the polls to help vote. He also warned independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whom he called a “radical leftist,” not to waste his time, saying, “Don't even think about that. Waste your vote. please do not.”
Trump also promised to reverse Biden administration policies, including gun control measures.
“What's going on is shameful, but with me in the White House, these radical gun grabbers will run straight into a very strong brick wall,” he said.
Trump, who calls himself “gun owners' best friend in the White House,” has an uneven history on the issue.
Speaking to thousands of NRA members at an outdoor show in Pennsylvania in February, he vowed that when he returns to the White House, “nobody will ever lay a finger on your firearm.” Ta. He also claimed that he did “nothing” on gun control during his tenure.
But as president, Trump has at times expressed support for stricter gun laws, and his administration has taken one of the most important steps to curb gun violence in decades: allowing semi-automatic rifles to fire. A rule has been established to ban bump stocks, which are attachments that can be used to Sustained and rapid bursts. The Supreme Court is currently ruling on the legality of the ban, which came after a mass shooting at a Las Vegas music festival in 2017 left 60 people dead. The Biden administration asked the justices to uphold it.
After the 2018 mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, that killed 17 people, Trump claimed he would be “very strong on background checks,” but ultimately reversed course.
Vice President Kamala Harris, who heads the first-ever federal office on gun violence prevention, touted the Biden administration's accomplishments on gun safety legislation in a statement about Trump's remarks at the NRA convention. She pointed to signing major legislation restricting access to firearms and increasing investment in the nation's mental health system, ending nearly 30 years of deadlock in Congress over how to address gun violence. He listed the measures he took.
He also criticized Trump's comment that “we have to get over this'' in response to the mass shooting that killed a sixth-grader in Iowa earlier this year. Harris said Trump is “pandering to gun control advocacy groups and threatening to make the crisis worse if re-elected.”