After dodging a Hillary Clinton presidency, Republicans have a historic shot to rewrite the nation’s gun laws under President-elect Donald Trump.
With control of Congress and the White House, Republicans are strategically positioned. At a minimum, they should be able to keep new gun control legislation from getting off the ground. And they could even have a shot, so to speak, at overturning federal gun free zones or the National Firearms Act banning automatic guns.
The new Second Amendment Caucus hopes to lead the charge.
Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, the group’s optimistic new chairman, credits the election for “a new opportunity to advance pro-gun legislation and reverse the erosion of the Second Amendment that’s occurred over the last few decades.”
By all accounts the Party of Lincoln has been successful already. While in both the minority and majority, they’ve stopped Democrats from beefing up federal firearm regulations. In eight years, President Obama addressed the nation fourteen times after as many mass shootings to push Congress to pass new regulation.
The outgoing executive told CNN last week that he’s “most frustrated” that he failed to pass “common sense gun control.”
But the new caucus isn’t content to obstruct. They want further deregulation of the Second Amendment and they’ve called for backup. The group enlisted economist John Lott and Alan Gura, the lawyer who challenged Chicago and Washington, D.C.’s handgun bans at the Supreme Court.
“While many of us lawyers are working to secure pro-gun reforms in the courts, it’s reassuring to know that the Second Amendment Caucus is doing the same in the legislature,” Gura said in a statement.
The pro-gun lobby has undergone dramatic swings in fortune during the last year. For two days in June, Democrats staged a sit-in on the House floor to protest Speaker Paul Ryan’s inaction on gun violence. And from the campaign trail, Clinton promised new firearm regulation.
The nightmare scenario for the NRA and GOP, the latter option didn’t come true. Now the Second Amendment Caucus chair says he’s ready to work with Trump “to promote a pro-gun agenda.”
Philip Wegmann is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
