One can make a lot of arguments about whether or not Donald Trump scored any points in Monday night’s debate, but one thing that’s hard to say is that Trump substantively articulated any sort of conservative policy vision for America.
Perhaps the most startling example of this is when the subject of gun control came up. At the debate, Hillary Clinton, quite predictably, endorsed the Democratic proposal that people on the terrorist watch list should be prevented from buying guns:
We finally need to pass a prohibition on anyone who’s on the terrorist watch list from being able to buy a gun in our country. If you’re too dangerous to fly, you are too dangerous to buy a gun. So there are things we can do, and we ought to do it in a bipartisan way.
But a short while later, Trump brought up the gun proposal again and endorsed it:
First of all, I agree, and a lot of people even within my own party want to give certain rights to people on watch lists and no- fly lists. I agree with you. When a person is on a watch list or a no-fly list, and I have the endorsement of the NRA, which I’m very proud of. These are very, very good people, and they’re protecting the Second Amendment. But I think we have to look very strongly at no-fly lists and watch lists. And when people are on there, even if they shouldn’t be on there, we’ll help them, we’ll help them legally, we’ll help them get off. But I tend to agree with that quite strongly.
This policy, which would deny Second Amendment rights to Americans on secret government lists, the vast majority of whom have committed no crime, is grossly unconstitutional, as noted in this WEEKLY STANDARD editorial last December:
The size of the list—and criteria for ending up on it—can vary from day to day. In 2011, 10,000 people were on the list. In 2013, that number was 47,000. While the no-fly list can be defended as a practical approach to a complex problem where we have little margin for error, it’s impossible to argue that it isn’t capricious. Further, there’s almost no process for those who end up on the list to get their names removed. The idea that anyone is going to be denied a clearly enumerated constitutional right based on some computer algorithm or the suspicion of federal bureaucrats is brazenly illegal. The White House has disingenuously and deliberately muddied the waters by putting out alarming stats, noting that 2,000 people on the terror watch list—wholly different from the no-fly list—have been able to buy guns. At the end of 2013, 1.1 million people were on the terror watch list. It’s also worth noting that a huge percentage of the people on these lists are Muslim. The media had a collective meltdown when Donald Trump urged an immigration moratorium on Muslims—even though he’s an attention-seeking blowhard who’s never held office. But when the leader of the free world suggests denying the constitutional rights of a large portion of the Muslim population, it’s somehow deemed a reasonable—even praiseworthy—proposal.</<wbr />blockquote> Unlike Clinton, Trump did at least acknowledge the huge problem with due process for people trying to get off the no-fly list. According to the New York Times, which was against the no-fly list before it decided it was valuable to pushing its gun control agenda, “A 2007 audit found that more than half of the 71,000 names then on the no-fly list were wrongly included.” But even with the caveat that Trump wants to fix the due process problems with the list, we don’t know how he plans to accomplish it. The best-case scenario here is that Trump is referring to a GOP proposal that would allow the FBI to get a warrant and stop gun purchases for those on terror watch lists, in the instances that the FBI has legitimate reasons to be concerned about specific terror threats. (Democrats killed this proposal, even as they continue to promote their own indefensible alternative.) But when Trump says, “I tend to agree with that quite strongly,” it sure sounds like he’s not doing much to differentiate himself from Clinton. Further, Trump has expressed support for gun control measures in the past. Without Trump providing any additional clarity on the matter, there’s simply no way supporters of Second Amendment rights can support this policy. And they should be horrified about the possibility the NRA-endorsed presidential candidate thinks it is reasonable. THE WEEKLY STANDARD reached out to the Trump campaign for comment and clarification, and they have yet to respond. We will update if and when they do.
