Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is going into detail about his views on guns, releasing a position paper Friday that says “our personal protection is ultimately up to us.”
“That’s why I’m a gun owner,” Trump said, “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.”
This is Trump’s second such policy paper. The first, released in August, was on immigration.
The New York businessman hasn’t always been so conservative on guns. In 2000, he said: “I support the ban on assault weapons.” But on Friday, he dismissed those who use that phrase: “Opponents of gun rights try to come up with scary sounding phrases like ‘assault weapons.'”
In his paper, Trump says gun and magazine bans “are a total failure.” As for background checks, he said “we need to do is fix the system we have and make it work as intended. What we don’t need to do is expand a broken system.”
Trump says he supports national right-to-carry bills: “That permit should be valid in all 50 states,” he said. “A driver’s license works in every state, so it’s common sense that a concealed carry permit should work in every state.”
He also calls for allowing firearms on military bases and recruiting centers: “Banning our military from carrying firearms on bases and at recruiting centers is ridiculous,” he said. “We train our military how to safely and responsibly use firearms, but our current policies leave them defenseless.”
Referencing recent mass shootings, Trump said it is the “broken mental health system,” and not gun laws, that needed to be fixed. “Those who are violent, a danger to themselves or others, we need to get them off the street before they can terrorize our communities,” he said.
“All of the tragic mass murders that occurred in the past several years have something in common – there were red flags that were ignored. We can’t allow that to continue,” Trump said.