If you’re serious about fighting terrorism, you should at the very least want to keep guns out of the hands of people on various terror watch lists. So say leading Democrats. Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump agrees.
The latest renewed gun control push comes after the Orlando shootings that left 49 patrons of a gay nightclub dead and 53 others wounded. A recent Gallup poll found that the American public is sharply divided over whether the incident was primarily an act of Islamic terrorism (48 percent) or domestic gun violence (41 percent), with 6 percent saying both equally.
When you look at the partisan breakdown of the poll, the results are even starker. Republicans choose Islamic terrorism by 79 percent to 16 percent (only 1 percent say both equally). Democrats pick domestic gun violence 60 percent to 29 percent. Independents are split down the middle, with 44 percent saying terrorism to 42 percent calling it gun violence.
Trump may be in the “both” category. In the aftermath of Orlando, he ditched a planned speech about the perfidy of the Clintons for an address about the implications of the attack as an act of terror. He clearly implicated radical Islam as the cause and proposed curbs on Muslim immigration and surveillance of certain mosques as solutions.
“I refuse to be politically correct,” Trump said defiantly, as President Obama was instead placing the blame squarely on too-easy access to guns.
Then last Wednesday Trump tweeted the following: “I will be meeting with the NRA, who has endorsed me, about not allowing people on the terrorist watch list, or the no fly list, to buy guns.”
It was a bit of a surprise to the National Rifle Association, the country’s largest gun rights lobby, which endorsed Trump for president in May. As reported by the Washington Examiner‘s David Drucker, there was no coordination between the NRA and Trump on this social media announcement.
There were, however, some interesting reactions. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., publicly spurned the presumptive GOP nominee’s apparent support for what is currently one of her top legislative initiatives, telling the New York Times, “Oh, Trump just makes everything worse.”
Meanwhile, the NRA has as recently as Sunday denied there is any significant daylight between Trump and the gun rights group on this issue, calling it a “media-created diversion.”
The conservative site RedState titled a post on the contretemps “Stupid NRA Responds to Stupid Donald Trump’s Really Stupid Tweet.”
Trump’s position could still theoretically be reconciled with an NRA-supported proposal by Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, that aims to keep terror suspects from obtaining firearms while preserving some due process rights to the accused.
But if that’s the case, the businessman hasn’t been eager to clarify his stance. The shift comes at a time of increasing conservative buyer’s remorse as Trump fades in head-to-head matchups against Hillary Clinton and #NeverTrump forces are reviving talk of trying to stop him at the Republican National Convention.
As with many issues, Trump was previously more liberal on gun control than during the Republican primaries. As he courted voters Obama might have described as clinging bitterly to their guns, religion, etc., Trump veered further to the right on guns than he did on many economic and foreign policy issues where he was out of step with most GOP politicos.
If he can’t be trusted on guns, some conservatives might ask, where can he be trusted?
At the same time, Democrats have grown bolder in framing gun control as a national security issue. “Every senator is now going to have to say whether they’re for terrorists getting guns or against terrorists getting guns,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., argued that the “terrorists we need to fear” are on our streets rather than those of “Aleppo, or Mosul or Fallujah” and “they will have guns unless we pass tough laws.”
Democrats have grown frustrated with their inability to make headway on gun control in the face of well-publicized mass shooting incidents. While they tend to blame the intransigence of Republicans and groups like the NRA, public opinion has also failed to conform to their demands.
A 1999 ABC News/Washington Post poll conducted months after the Colombine shootings found support for stricter gun control 29 points ahead of the opposition. Polling the same question in 2013 months after Sandy Hook, backing for gun control was just 7 points ahead.
Similarly, in 1999 Pew found 66 percent of Americans believed it was more important to “control gun ownership” to 29 percent who thought it was more important to “protect the right of Americans to own guns.” In 2015, the numbers were 50-47.
Even in the 1990s, when public support for gun control ran even higher it was more likely to be a voting issue for gun owners, to the Democrats’ detriment. The assault weapons ban signed by President Bill Clinton polled well, but it also contributed to some Democratic members of Congress losing their seats during the 1994 Republican landslide.
On the other hand, many Republicans did relent on the Brady bill, which required background checks and waiting periods for most gun purchases.
It remains to be seen whether Orlando will be a similar breakthrough or another incident where Democratic advocacy of gun control backfires.
