Pro-gun group responds to Trump on gun control: ‘He doesn’t know how volatile this issue is’

By Whitney Tipton

A gun rights group warned President Donald Trump Monday not to underestimate the volatile effect proposing gun control legislation could have on his base.

Gun Owners of America (GOA), a gun rights organization with more than 2 million members, called on Trump and other lawmakers to reject calls for gun control in the wake of the El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, shootings.

“We think it’s important for Congress and the president to know that gun owners do not support the gun control measures Trump is advocating,” Erich Pratt, the group’s senior vice president, said in exclusive comments to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“Many presidents have failed to recognize how gun control motivates voters. He doesn’t know how volatile this issue is. It will be interesting to see how the grassroots react to his comments,” Pratt added.

Pratt was referring to remarks Trump made Monday about his administration’s plans to work with lawmakers on several gun control measures including “red flag” laws, which would facilitate the confiscation of weapons if someone has been deemed dangerous.

“It is frustrating to see President Donald Trump’s continued support for so-called ‘red flag’ laws. These ‘red flag’ laws, properly known as gun confiscation orders, are incompatible with actual due process and allow for the confiscation of firearms from innocent Americans,” said Pratt.

Trump also suggested the need to incorporate mental health status into qualifications for gun possession to prevent unstable individuals from having access to firearms, something the GOA believes is ripe for abuse.

“The GOA opposes all background checks for gun purchases, since unfortunately it could used as a drag net to disqualify individuals who should be able to own a gun,” said Pratt.

“For instance, past proposals have included putting Social Security Disability recipients on the list,” he added.

Trump also mentioned the impact social media may have on dissemination of unhealthy views, something that the GOA agrees with, so long as it doesn’t lead to censorship.

“Broadly, we recognize the ‘copycat’ phenomena out there. Some of these shooters just want to get noticed,” Pratt said.

“We have to be careful, however,” he added. “We don’t want to get Congress into the business of discriminating against online speech because then they can justify censorship, which we don’t want.”

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Image courtesy of St. Louis Circuit Attorney's Office

10 thoughts on “Pro-gun group responds to Trump on gun control: ‘He doesn’t know how volatile this issue is’

  1. Addressing the Gun issue: Red flag could be a red haring, look at the “impartial lawyers”
    Muller employed. Look at the crooked 3rd floor of the Federal Bureau of Incompetence that
    not only had agents protecting a crooked criminal hag named Hitlery, they also were trying to dethrone the duly elected Pres. Who do you trust to make the decision and who will be chosen when someone else is in charge.. Hell you can’t even trust the FISA court or SC.
    There’s too much dishonesty to have a HONEST discussion. It’s become the numba2 trigger
    of the left to climatetardism…
    The pro antifa lefty shooter was KNOWN as a lot of them recently and nothing was done.

  2. If we had a HONEST impartial Media (of more then 3%) Pres Trump wouldn’t have to have his tweet account. When partisan hacks are allowed to voice their opinion as fact and that is promoted by the 97% fake snoose media as fact you have a Goebbels esq master propagada
    machine which delivers the daily message to the unthinking sheeple which the left owns unopposed. As the Mark Dice video pointed out the left is so consumed in the Donalds tweets
    they end up having quite a few bad days by the time the spin machine has sent out the new
    Party Line..
    I believe at least 35% of the country is one tweet away from going totally full blown mental
    craziee, and the Trumpster can do it when ever he wishes…

  3. People need to stop whining and think. — We need to keep guns from some people who are a danger to the rest of us. Trump is working on that. If you leave it to the liberals, they will take guns from everyone. Now which solution is better?

  4. How about we start by putting high school students that have suspended on the list. That would have stopped a few of these shootings. — And it might just make some of them behave better and study harder.

  5. Whatever happened to the Fourth Amendment ??

    Red Flag laws are the worst idea I have ever heard, just think of the abuse from
    someone that just doesn’t like you ” False Claims ” and your property is confiscated
    under this law.

    The President should be the first one who understands “False Claims ” such as the
    Russian Collusion, the Left stating he’s crazy and the list goes on all false claims but
    under ” Red Flag ” he’d be in trouble !!

    I assume Vermont’s Three Clowns will jump in on promoting ” Red Flag ” nonsense instead
    of fixing the real problem “Mental Illness” but that would mean they would really have to
    do some real work !!

    Real Vermonter’s wake up………………..

      • Could you take a few moments and explain in more detail exactly what you mean by your comment?

    • They’ll get the memo from media matters shortly and start the press releases. At the moment there is a massive roll out for “unfollowing President Trump on Twitter”. Look at this video, while it’s comic, you have to note,,,,

      How do all the people say the same thing across the entire country on the same day? You normally couldn’t pay $100,000,000 to get this all rolled out at one time. This is not natural, it shows how it is all very, very coordinated, scripted and telling that it’s truly propaganda.

      Sheryl Atkisson…….great book, The Smear.

      https://youtu.be/YYy4KJgPvYc

      The soviet union, china and north korea are jealous about the vast coordination and our ability to promote propaganda in the United States of America. People need to recognize the propaganda.

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