‘We’ve been at this rodeo before’: gun-safety groups prepare for second Trump term
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With ‘the best friend gun owners have ever had in the White House’ to return, gun-safety groups eye state level actions. Donald Trump’s imminent return to Washington has put gun-safety groups on high alert, as the president-elect once described himself as “the best friend gun owners have ever had in the White House”.
![[A Trump supporter looks on at people gathered outside the Mar-a-Lago club for a March for Our Lives in Florida in 2018.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/7867b62275add76f33be3c6385b17f0a05e94ede/0_0_3000_2061/master/3000.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Emma Brown, executive director of the gun-safety group Giffords, initially reacted to the news of Trump’s victory in the presidential race not with dismay, but with defiance. “When you take a step back and you look at the multi-decade arc of this issue, it’s obvious that we have had lots of ups and downs,” Brown said. “The first thought in my head [when Trump won] was: we’re ready for this.”.
With Trump returning for a second term, gun safety groups acknowledge that they will spend much of the next four years playing defense at the federal level. But despite their disappointment over Kamala Harris’s loss, advocates voiced determination and some cautious optimism about what they can achieve at the state level and through corporate accountability measures during Trump’s presidency.
“We’ve been at this rodeo before,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety. “But we’ve got the playbook from 2016, and in some ways, I think we’re in much better shape than we were in 2016.”. When Trump first entered the White House in 2017, the National Rifle Association (NRA) was at the height of its power. The gun rights group spent more than $30m in support of Trump’s 2016 campaign, making the organization the largest outside contributor to his election effort. Once he was sworn in, Trump often consulted with the group’s then CEO, Wayne LaPierre, to discuss gun laws. After expressing openness to expanding background checks on gun purchases following two mass shootings in Texas and Ohio in 2019, Trump backtracked following a phone call with LaPierre.
