Guest Post by Tony Oliva
Trump train is picking up steam. Trump is speaking an enraged message that is resonating with his supporters and saying all the right things that is the red meat of red state citizens.
And while I agree with a great many things that Donald Trump SAYS…I don’t know if I agree with anything Trump BELIEVES.
Donald Trump is a New York City guy. I won’t hold that against him because I also come from New York city…though I left the city and then the state as soon as I could to make my home in the free Commonwealth of Pennsylvania where I am not crushed under taxes and can wear my gun on my hip in freedom, but I digress.
The question with Trump is whether the real Trump is the one on the campaign trail talking about building a fence along the southern border, protecting the 2nd Amendment, overhauling immigration etc is what he believes or whether it is just what he is saying to get elected.
Considering this site deals with the right to keep and bear arms lets focus on that.
Trump has been critical of Obama and his gun control mission. That’s great. So have all of us who believe in the 2nd Amendment.
But not so long ago, back in 2000, Trump had this to say in his book The America We Deserve:
“The Republicans walk the NRA line and refuse even limited restrictions. I generally oppose gun control, but I support the ban on assault weapons and I also support a slightly longer waiting period to purchase a gun.”
Now before the mindless Trump supporters start railing on me about how people change and views “evolve” this wasn’t a statement from Trump’s youth, or 40 years ago in the 1970’s.
Donald Trump was 53 years old when he made that statement.
I don’t know about you but barring cataclysmic life events, my core values and beliefs haven’t changed much in adulthood and I am half Trump’s age.
Core beliefs are core because they aren’t easily changed or “evolve.” The viewpoints of mine that have changed or altered in the past decade or so were small in general and concerned more peripheral issues.
Trump, on the other hand, decides to run for President and now his views on the 2nd Amendment that he held a few years ago about denying the right to own a sporting rifle and the belief that citizens should have their rights delayed are no longer convenient beliefs for him to have.
I find that troubling.
I also find it troubling that Trump keeps switching parties.
Until 1987, he was a Democrat, then he was a Republican from 1987 to 1999. He then switched to the Reform Party from 1999 to 2001. From 2001 to 2009 he was a Democrat again, he switched to the Republican Party again from 2009 to 2011. An independent from 2011 to 2012, he returned to the Republican Party in 2012, where he has remained.
In the past 16 years Trump was a Democrat of 9 of those years, a Republican for 6 and an Independent for 1.
This on top of the fact that he was initially a Democrat for the first 20 something years of his adult life.
You know another New Yorker who liked to switch parties…MICHAEL BLOOMBERG.
Now, while I am not saying that Trump is nearly as bad as Bloomberg on where he falls on guns, perhaps when appointing a replacement for Justice Scalia, Trump doesn’t put defending the 2nd Amendment high on his list of requirements.
I mean, it wasn’t so long ago that Trump thought that the right was fine in being delayed and that the government should be able to limit the type of firearms law abiding people should be able to own.
And THAT’s the trouble with Trump. Do we believe what he says NOW(which may be the truth) or do we take the body of evidence of an oft time Democrat, who has espoused anti gun rhetoric and may just be saying what he knows people want to hear in order to get elected.
True, many politicians do that, but there is difference between aggrandizing your position and completely making it up.
I hope the Republican party (of which I am not a member) figures out the truth before Super Tuesday. Because a President Trump who has bamboozled the entire country could actually be worse than an avowed socialist or criminally insane former Secretary of State. At least you know what you are getting with those two and it is easier to stop their madness.
Crossposted from BulletsFirst
