Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Trump pumps up NRA members
The president’s supportive speech at the National Rifle Association’s annual gathering was a stark contrast to his conciliatory tone in the aftermath of the Parkland school massacre.
DALLAS — President Donald Trump on Friday addressed the National Rifle Association’s annual meeting in a speech that served as a rallying cry to his base, an attack on his detractors and a signal of his strong support for the gun rights group after suggesting months earlier he was open to some firearm restrictions.
His message in front of the adoring crowd was a stark departure from the defiant tone he took toward the NRA in the immediate aftermath of the Feb. 14 shooting at a Parkland, high school, when he embraced tougher gun restrictions and proudly boasted that the powerful gun lobby has “less power over me” than Republican lawmakers.
But any streak of independence from the NRA was gone Friday, as Trump allied himself with some of the gun group’s biggest priorities in a rambling, 45-minute speech that focused as much on his foreign policy agenda, approval ratings and the latest in the Russia investigation as it did on gun policy.
“The people in this hall have never taken our freedom granted. Never,” Trump said. “And you have never stopped fighting for our beloved Constitution. Incredible people.”
Trump endorsed a top NRA goal to allow trained teachers to carry concealed weapons and to install more armed security guards in schools. Signs declaring a school as a gun-free zone, Trump argued, were essentially invitations to attackers to “come in and take us.”
“They love their students and they’re not going to let anybody hurt their students. But you have to give them a chance,” Trump said. “In America, we trust the people to be wise and good ... that is why in America, we’ve always trusted the people to keep and bear arms.”
This is the fourth year that Trump has addressed the NRA, which has been a powerful ally from the earliest days of his presidential campaign. The NRA spent more money on behalf of Trump than did any outside group in 2016, deploying its resources for him earlier than in any other presidential cycle.
Friday’s speech was his first appearance before NRA members since the Parkland shooting, which created a new wave of momentum for the gun-control movement nationwide led by the students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
The massacre of 17 students and faculty members moved Trump to flirt with stricter gun measures that collided with NRA priorities, such as raising the legal age to purchase AR-15s and similar types of rifles to 21 and expanding background checks to guns sold at shows and online. In a meeting with lawmakers, Trump even mocked Republican lawmakers over the power of the gun lobby, telling one GOP senator he was “afraid of the NRA.”
But Trump quickly backtracked, instead embracing modest gun-related measures such as legislation to improve information sharing for the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. That bill, known as the Fix NICS Act, was signed into law as part of a government spending measure in March.
Trump gave no indication Friday that his gun agenda would diverge from policies embraced by the NRA. He began his remarks lavishing praise on the crowd and the group’s commitment to the Second Amendment, saying “the people in this hall have never taken our freedom for granted.”
“Your Second Amendment rights are under siege,” Trump told the NRA members, whom he referred to as patriots. “But they will never ever be under siege as long as I’m your president.”
To bolster his case for arming teachers and adding guards, Trump argued “there is no stronger deterrent for a sick individual than the knowledge that their attack will end their life and end in total failure.” An FBI study of active shootings has found that mass shootings frequently end when the attackers kill themselves.
Trump also denounced European cities with tougher gun laws, invoking the November 2015 massacre in Paris to make a case that “if one employee or just one patron had a gun,” the citywide attack could’ve been stopped.
Though he has made similar comments before — most notably after the June 2016 massacre inside Pulse nightclub in Orlando — several recent high-profile shootings have occurred despite the presence of armed officers in or around the premises.
In his speech Friday, Trump showed none of the policy flexibility he did earlier this year that had left some gun-control activists and Democratic lawmakers somewhat optimistic that the famously mercurial president could embrace some firearms restrictions.
“Donald Trump has allowed his presidency to be hijacked by gun lobbyists and campaign dollars,” former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, Dariz., who was shot in the head during a constituent event in 2011, said in a statement Friday. “As a result, the threats to our kids and our communities remain unaddressed.”
While Trump used the speech to firmly embrace the NRA’s agenda, he also treated it like a campaign rally — urging members to vote in the midterm elections, boasting about the improving unemployment numbers, touting the recent tax cuts, criticizing the media and lambasting the investigation into Russia’s meddling in the election.