The president on Wednesday took a handful of distinctly un-Republican positions on guns—including saying police should dispense with due process and just ‘take the guns first.’
In 2016, NRA-endorsed Republican candidate Donald Trump won the presidency after many months of insisting that his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton was going to grab your guns.
In February 2018, President Trump publicly called for a subversion of due process, and for the government to “take the guns first.”
During a televised meeting with lawmakers at the White House on Wednesday afternoon, the president and assembled legislators spent the hour riffing on ideas for securing schools and curtailing gun violence in America. Trump ping-ponged between various policy positions and postures, invariably making unforced interjections that would make his staunchest pro-gun supporters cringe.
When Vice President Mike Pence talked about how those who are a “danger to themselves or others” should have their firearms taken away, but also afforded due process, the president jumped in to one-up Pence.
“Or, Mike, take the firearms first, and then go to court,” Trump said, breaking with his own vice president on live TV. “Because that’s another system. Because a lot of times, by the time you go to court, it takes so long to go to court, to get the due process procedures.”
The president continued, sounding like the caricature of “gun-grabbing” Democrats he’d once warned against: “I like taking the guns early. Like in this crazy man’s case that just took place in Florida… To go to court would have taken a long time. So you could do exactly what you’re saying, but take the guns first, go through due process second.”
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Trump’s gun-grabbing moment, of course, would be another addition to the ongoing trend of senior Trump aides claiming after the fact that the president did not say what he, in fact, said publicly.
“It’s to the effect of: the president was not talking about violating anyone’s rights, he was talking about keeping guns out of the hands of violent, mentally unstable people and criminals,” one official said, explaining what a canned response would look like.
In the course of an hour, Trump cast aside other key pillars of Republican orthodoxy on gun rights.
He endorsed legislation first pushed by the Obama White House to expand federal background checks for private gun sales, shot down GOP efforts to expand the rights of concealed carry permit-holders, and even suggested reviving a Democratic measure to ban “assault weapons.”
Trump wanted everyone in the room to be, in his words, “very, very powerful on background checks.”
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), who has pushed an assault-weapons ban for years, was visibly giddy as the president suggested including that measure in congressional gun-control legislation. “We’re gonna get it passed,” the president then declared.
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So. That gun legislation meeting was certainly something. https://t.co/3LZzlW7KrO
— Lachlan Markay (@lachlan) February 28, 2018
Watch Dianne Feinstein Erupt With Glee After Trump Seems to Endorse Her Assault Weapons Ban https://t.co/8745X96mxv (VIDEO) pic.twitter.com/p3Gz0FQrmd
— Mediaite (@Mediaite) February 28, 2018
That picture says it all …. Amazing!
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), who has pushed an assault-weapons ban for years, was visibly giddy
Person: I voted for Trump ‘cause he’s gonna drain the swamp and crush McConnell and Ryan!
Same person: I’m not worried about Trump’s Second Amendment comments ‘cause Ryan and McConnell won’t let anything bad pass.
— David French (@DavidAFrench) March 1, 2018
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