Trump Promises NRA He Will Remove Gun Free Zones

Donald Trump on Friday called Hillary Clinton “the most anti-gun, anti-Second Amendment” presidential candidate to ever run for office and likened her posture on the issue to that of a dictator.

“Hillary’s pledged to issue new anti-gun executive orders, you know that. This is the behavior, you could say of a dictator. This is the behavior of somebody, frankly, I think that doesn’t know what she’s doing,” Trump said in a speech at the National Rifle Association Leadership Forum. She’s not equipped to be president in so many different ways. This is the thinking of a person that is not equipped to be the president of the United States. Believe me, she doesn’t understand it.”

He also echoed Bernie Sanders’ attacks on Clinton — the Vermont senator challenged whether the former secretary of state was qualified and had the temperament to be president.

“Bad judgment. We talk about it. She’s got bad judgment. You know where it came from,” Trump said. “It came from me and also came from her current opponent, who’s doing pretty well, I’ll tell you.”

Trump also vowed to get rid of gun-free zones, invoking the July 2015 shootings in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in which a gunman opened fire in gun-free zones on military installations there, eventually killing five people. (The FBI later said the attacks were “motivated by foreign terrorist organization propaganda.”)

“That wasn’t part of my speech, I must be honest with you,” Trump admitted. “I don’t know. I don’t know. Maybe I shouldn’t read you what I have here. But in fact, if I would have known teleprompters, I would have used them.”

Before Trump began addressing the crowd in Louisville, Kentucky, the NRA formally announced its endorsement of the billionaire, warning of the dangers of a Hillary Clinton presidency. But throughout his remarks, the real estate mogul echoed much of what NRA’s leadership said in their comments preceding his appearance.

“Hillary wants to disarm vulnerable citizens in high crime neighborhoods, whether it is a young single mom in Florida or a grandmother in Ohio, Hillary wants them to be defenseless, wants to take away any chance they have of survival,” Trump said. “By the way, you have men and you have women sitting in an apartment. And outside is tremendous crime. Tremendous crimes of all kinds. And they need to be protected. And you know, the only way they are going to be able to protect themselves. And if you take that gun away from them, it’s gonna be a very unfair situation.”

“That’s why we’re going to call her Heartless Hillary. We can do without that,” Trump said, though he added, “I like Crooked Hillary better.”

(h/t Politico)

Reality

Donald Trump claimed that gun-free zones are like “bait” to a “sicko” to much applause to the NRA members in attendance. Actually Trump is echoing the NRA’s own argument that if guns are not allowed near schools and government buildings then shootings cannot be stopped by a “good guy with a gun.” However the empirical evidence is not on Trump’s side.

In 2014 the FBI released a reported titled “A Study of Active Shooter Incidents in the United States Between 2000 and 2013” which looked over 13 years of data and a of total of 160 incidents, and concluded the concept of a good guy with a gun was unequivocally proven to be a myth. The number of times a shooting ended after armed citizens exchanged gunfire with the shooters only amounted to 5 times (3.1%). In contrast the number of times unarmed citizens safely and successfully disrupted the shootings was 21 times (13.1%).

Donald Trump also parroted the NRA claim that more guns make Americans safer. Let’s forget for a moment of the NRA’s round-up program, where the NRA’s lobby wing receives money every time a gun is purchased in the United States, this argument again has zero basis in the documented evidence. A review of the academic literature by Harvard University looked at a broad array of evidence and concluded where guns are more available, there are more homicides by firearm.

Instead the FBI and academia recognizes that seeking to prevent these tragedies is clearly the best result.

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