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Americans were still grappling with yet another mass shooting — this time, at the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl celebration — when Donald Trump delivered his message to the gun lobby.
In short, it was: I’m on your side.
During a speech in South Carolina on Wednesday night, Trump repeated a brag he trotted out previously, touting the fact that no significant gun safety legislation was passed when he was president.
“During that four-year period, nothing happened with our Second Amendment,” he said.
He’s essentially right about that. Although he authorized some incremental measures — like a ban on rapid-fire “bump stocks,” which is currently being considered by the Supreme Court — Trump’s administration did very little in practice to curb gun violence.
And he’s proud of that.
Speaking to thousands of National Rifle Association members at a Pennsylvania conference last week, the former president bragged: “During my four years, nothing happened — and there was great pressure on me having to do with guns. We did nothing. We didn’t yield.”
Needless to say, it’s grim that Trump would brag about impeding gun safety legislation at all — let alone, as he did Wednesday, while the country was dealing with the trauma of yet another shooting. But Trump has a history of downplaying gun violence.
The day after the Iowa school shooting last month, Trump gave a speech in the state — telling Iowans they’d “have to get over it.”
“We have to move forward,” he said.
On the issue of gun violence, I’d argue we’ve seen Trump move beyond standard do-nothing Republicanism to an even more sinister place.
His willingness to joke about shooting people himself, his support for conservatives who have fatally shot people, his call to have shoplifters shot as they leave the store and his obsequiousness to the gun lobby make one thing clear: He doesn’t actually see gun violence as a problem.
He sees it as a ... well ... weapon. Something he can use, in a twisted way, to instill fear or show loyalty to the minority of Americans who want “nothing” (Trump’s word) done to curb the scourge of gun violence in the U.S.