By: Anthony Morelli
There is a new gun controversy swirling around Donald Trump.
And if he’s not careful, this controversy will stick to him like caramel.
Trump took action to protect one gun control law.
It is impossible to predict what Donald Trump is going to do on any given day, and that is especially true on an issue like gun control.
On things like immigration or trade, it is fairly clear what Trump is going to do as he has had the same views on those issues for a very long time.
But it’s fair to say that before he ran for president as a Republican, Donald Trump probably did not care very much about the gun issue.
Now, gun owners are a core constituency of his, and he has to do some things to keep them in his corner.
But some of the actions he is continuing to take are going to be very controversial among people who own guns, even the ones who voted for him.
Now he has taken a shocking action to protect a gun control law that many people likely thought he would do away with.
According to The Reload, “President Donald Trump ran for re-election at least in part on a promise to do away with certain federal gun-control laws. Now, his administration is actively fighting to keep the most commonly enforced federal gun law intact and on the books.
“Throughout the month of April, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has argued in court filings against the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) granting review of the constitutionality of the lifetime gun ban for felons. Most recently, Solicitor General John Sauer responded to a petition for certiorari in one such case. On Friday, he argued that the issue ‘does not warrant this Court’s review,’ minimized the difference of opinion on the ban among the lower courts, and said the DOJ’s new process for restoring gun rights was sufficient.”
It’s unclear why exactly the DOJ is doing this, although it’s worth pointing out that Pam Bondi, the attorney general and head of the DOJ, also has a very mixed record on guns.
However, Bondi likely would not do anything that contradicted the will of her boss.
The article continues, “The DOJ’s filings show the Trump Administration’s preferred approach to gun rights for convicted felons. It’s one that would grant a high degree of discretion and centralize the decision-making within the executive branch rather than through a widely applicable legal precedent, as gun-rights advocates have long sought in court. As a result, it may undermine many of the movement’s best cases by undercutting the claims of sympathetic plaintiffs.”
The best guess is that the Trump administration sees this as part of their push for “law and order.”
But as important as law and order is, it is not the only thing that matters, and everything must be balanced.
Hopefully the Trump administration will not push “law and order” at the expense of core freedoms that are protected by the Constitution.