Opinion

Is Trump Right About Hillary’s Views On Guns?

Images via Reuters, RTX2BSZG and RTX2BT7I

John Lott President, Crime Prevention Research Center
Font Size:

The media — from fact checkers to late night talk shows — has had a field day claiming that Trump is making false statements on guns. The media ought to have lost credibility by now.

Last Friday at the NRA convention, Donald Trump forcefully repeated his challenge to Hillary Clinton on guns: “As I said before, she wants to abolish the Second Amendment. She wants to take your guns away. She wants to abolish — just remember that. … If she gets to appoint her judges, she will abolish the Second Amendment.”

Hillary Clinton tweeted back “You’re wrong, @realDonaldTrump. We can uphold Second Amendment rights while preventing senseless gun violence.”

CNN noted: “Clinton, who swiftly rebutted Trump’s remarks, has called for universal background checks and stricter controls on firearms, but has never called for the abolition of the 2nd Amendment. In fact, on her website, she calls gun ownership ‘part of the fabric of many law-abiding communities.’” Politifact asserted: “We found no evidence of Clinton ever saying verbatim or suggesting explicitly that she wants to abolish the Second Amendment, and the bulk of Clinton’s comments suggest the opposite. She has repeatedly said she wants to protect the right to bear arms while enacting measures to prevent gun violence.”  

But these are the same organizations that assured people that their concerns about Obama on guns were wrong. In 2008, FactCheck.org asserted that there was no evidence that Obama would “appoint Judges to the U.S. Supreme Court and Federal Judiciary Who Share His Views on the Second Amendment.” Obama “always believed that the Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to bear arms,” the website concluded.

Politifact now tries giving people the same assurance: “The bulk of Clinton’s comments suggest the opposite [that she supports gun ownership].”  CNN says the same.

And yet, Obama went on to appoint Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In Otis McDonald’s case against Chicago’s gun ban, Sotomayor agreed with this argument: “I can find nothing in the Second Amendment ’s text, history, or underlying rationale that could warrant characterizing it as “fundamental” insofar as it seeks to protect the keeping and bearing of arms for private self-defense purposes.”

In New York City last fall, Clinton privately told donors: “The Supreme Court is wrong on the Second Amendment, and I am going to make that case every chance that I get.” Kagan spearheaded President Bill Clinton gun control efforts during the 1990s.

Politifact described these Supreme Court cases as merely a debate over “gun regulations.” But these cases pertained to a much more precise question. The Heller and McDonald Supreme Court decisions struck down complete gun bans in Washington, DC and Chicago. Heller also struck down a DC law that made it a crime to put a bullet in the chamber of a gun. 

If the Second Amendment means anything, it means that people should be able to own guns and that a complete ban goes too far. With the passing of Antonin Scalia, the court would now be divided 4-4 on these cases. If Hillary appoints Scalia’s replacement and gets her wish to overturn those cases, governments could again ban all guns.

Clinton’s private comments are also more likely to give us a better view of her plans. This is surely true of President Obama’s private comments, which include his 2008 remarks that Americans “cling to guns or religion.” Or his comments to me about not wanting people to own guns when we were both working at the University of Chicago Law School,

The late night talk shows have also piled up on Trump. On Monday night, Seth Meyers asserted that Trump’s push for ending gun-free zones was hypocritical because guns were banned from the 2016 NRA convention. But Meyers should have double-checked his claims. As the NRA announced on its website, the only places at the convention where guns would be temporarily banned were areas where the U.S. Secret Service had jurisdiction.

In 2008, the media dismissed warnings about Obama’s views on guns. And a lot of damage has been done. This time, the consequences of trusting the media may be the permanent loss of many Americans’ right to defend themselves and their families.

John Lott is the president of the Crime Prevention Research Center and the author of More Guns, Less Crime (University of Chicago Press, 2010, 3rd edition).

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel