President Trump said something in Wednesday’s televised gun roundtable that, had it been said by former President Barack Obama or former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, would have caused heart attacks and sparked a thousand Gadsden-flag protests across country.
“I like taking the guns early,” the president said, referring to individuals deemed to dangerous to bear arms. “Take the guns first. Go through due process second.”
The lack of a reaction from most of the Right and the calm rebuttal from the National Rifle Association tell us some things about politics in 2018. We are reminded of how tribalism and party increasingly rise above policy in our fiercest disputes. We are also reminded of the president’s lack of verbal continence. He tends to say things without thinking them through, and his later actions and words often prove divorced from his earlier words.
Trump’s comments also reminded us of three crucial truths: He is not a conservative and not an authoritarian despot, and there are sensible gun control policies that could work.
Trump is not a conservative
To be more precise, Trump does not share the political philosophy espoused by conservative intellectuals, rooted in the Constitution and inspired by the writings of Edmund Burke and Russell Kirk. Trump is a lot closer to the median Republican voter.
A dedication to limited government as the best means for preserving individual liberty and safeguarding the crucial institutions of civil society — this is not a first principle to which Trump holds dear. He wants less government at times and more government at other times. His guiding star is his own ad hoc judgment. Constraints on federal power, such as checks and balances, federalism, the rule of law, and, yes, due process are explicitly constraints on the ability of a majority or a well-intentioned executive to impose his will and institute major changes quickly.
The Left has always bristled against these constraints and has often trampled them. The New Deal and Obama’s lawless implementation of Obamacare are perfect examples. Democrats’ recent calls to bar gun ownership by anyone on the no-fly list was Trumpian in that it called for taking guns first. (The difference is there is no set process for getting off the no-fly list, so Democrats weren’t even offering to “go through due process second.”)
Trump is like the liberals in this regard, and conservatives always need to remember that.
Trump is not an authoritarian
This was the liberal scare story about Trump. Few utterances could fit the authoritarian mold more neatly than declaring that you will disarm part of the populace without due process. Combine that with Trump’s occasional pining for tougher libel laws or “pulling licenses” from news channels he dislikes, and Trump is clearly not a consistent supporter of the Bill of Rights.
But here’s the thing — nobody thinks Trump will actually get to take people’s guns without due process or that when it’s problems are explained to him he will even try. There are no “licenses” to pull from CNN or MSNBC. And the limits of libel law have been pretty well litigated and adjudicated, with the First Amendment winning out.
Trump is not an authoritarian, we think, in part because he does not really want to be, but also because we have a system that prevents him from becoming one even if he did want to be. Certainly, the FBI is not his personal squad of henchmen. Congress, where his party controls a majority, has bucked or ignored his worst ideas. Courts have been more aggressive than normal at curbing his power. The constant disorder in his administration renders impotent any authoritarian urges, such as they may be.
There are reasonable gun control proposals
Here, we need to listen closely to the gun conversation from Wednesday. Trump was responding to, and maybe almost agreeing with, a proposal by Vice President Mike Pence. Pence touted a policy idea which exists in some states called a Gun Violence Restraining Order, or GVRO. If Trump wants the ability to disarm dangerous people before they kill, this is the way, but only after due process.
A GVRO functions like a typical restraining order an abused wife may obtain against her ex-husband. Someone close to the perceived threat has to make a case to a judge that a particular person is too dangerous to be armed. In normal cases, the accused has the right to defend himself before the judge. If he loses, he temporarily loses his gun rights.
Any GVRO must meet certain thresholds, and all would be temporary, unless a case is convincingly made to extend it.
Due process comes before and after the guns are taken away. A GVRO nevertheless has the virtue Trump presumably sought, which is speed and the ability to act before anyone pulls a trigger.
Trump could end up getting behind this proposal, even with all the due process it entails.
It’s dizzying to have a president who is so flippant with weighty words and so detached from any political philosophy. But if we listen close enough, we can see through the fog his words create.
