Soon after he pulled out of a forum heavy on policy, Donald Trump released a policy paper outlining his thoughts on the Second Amendment.
In a press release Friday afternoon, the real estate mogul offered up a strong defense of gun ownership, saying that “personal protection” of Americans is “up to us,” while backtracking on a notorious past stance on assault weapons.
“The Second Amendment to our Constitution is clear,” Trump said in the paper. “The right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed upon. Period.”
“Our personal protection is ultimately up to us,” Trump said. “That’s why I’m a gun owner, that’s why I have a concealed carry permit and that’s why tens of millions of Americans have concealed carry permits as well. It’s just common sense. To make America great again, we’re going to go after criminals and put the law back on the side of the law-abiding.”
The GOP front-runner also took aim at gun and magazine bans, calling them a “total failure” in the paper.
“That’s been proven every time it’s been tried,” Trump posited. “Opponents of gun rights try to come up with scary sounding phrases like ‘assault weapons’, ‘military-style weapons’ and ‘high capacity magazines’ to confuse people. What they’re really talking about are popular semi-automatic rifles and standard magazines that are owned by tens of millions of Americans.”
“Law-abiding people should be allowed to own the firearm of their choice,” said Trump, who currently tops the Washington Examiner‘s latest power rankings.
Trump’s remarks on assault weapons on Friday contrasts sharply with his stance in 2000 in which he offered up support for a ban on such weapons.
“I support the ban on assault weapons,” Trump said at the time.
The policy paper was released a mere two hours after Trump abruptly announced he would not be attending the Heritage Action Presidential Forum Friday evening in Greenville, S.C, which is set to be heavy on policy. The announcement also came a day after Trump refused to talk down an anti-Muslim supporter who said that President Obama is really a Muslim at a rally in Rochester, N.H.
The policy paper is Trump’s second of the campaign, with the first being on immigration.
