Digital Media Center
Bryant-Denny Stadium, Gate 61
920 Paul Bryant Drive
Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0370
(800) 654-4262

© 2024 Alabama Public Radio
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Donald Trump Pivots On Guns In Wake Of Orlando Mass Shooting

KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:

We're talking a lot about the politics of gun control today. The mass shooting in Orlando has revived the debate over whether Congress should tighten laws so people on government watch lists can't buy guns. The presumptive Democratic president nominee, Hillary Clinton, supports such a move. And surprisingly, some Republicans, including their presumptive nominee, Donald Trump, show signs of a change on this issue. NPR's Don Gonyea reports from Atlanta.

DON GONYEA, BYLINE: Hillary Clinton has long called for tougher gun laws. She's frequently said banning assault weapons would make the country safer and not affect a person's right to own a gun under the Second Amendment. And...

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

HILLARY CLINTON: If you are too dangerous to get on a plane, you are too dangerous to buy a gun.

GONYEA: That's Clinton and Hampton, Va., today. She continued.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

CLINTON: If the FBI is watching you for suspected terrorist links, you should not be able to buy a gun with no questions asked.

GONYEA: For months now, Donald Trump has attacked Clinton in speeches, boasting of his endorsement from the National Rifle Association and claiming that Clinton wants to eliminate the Second Amendment.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

DONALD TRUMP: By the way, I'm going to save your Second Amendment, OK? I'm going to save your Second Amendment.

(CHEERING)

GONYEA: That's him today at a rally in Atlanta where he said armed patrons in the Orlando Nightclub would have stopped the shooter.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

TRUMP: If the bullets were going in the other direction aimed at this guy who was just open target practice, you would've had a situation, folks, which would've been always horrible but nothing like the carnage that we all as a people suffered this weekend - nothing.

(CHEERING)

GONYEA: That's pretty standard rhetoric from Trump. He said the same last fall about the terror attack on the theater in Paris. But early today in a tweet, Trump said something different, something that signals a shift in his position on guns. He tweeted, quote, "I will be meeting with the NRA, who has endorsed me, about not allowing people on the terrorist watch list or the no-fly list to buy guns."

The NRA reacted with a written statement, saying they're happy to meet with Trump, but their position hasn't changed. The organization says terrorists shouldn't be allowed to purchase or possess firearms. Their statement goes on. Quote, "at the same time, due process protections should be put in place that allow law-abiding Americans who are wrongly put on a watch list to be removed."

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

MITCH MCCONNELL: Nobody wants terrorists to have firearms.

GONYEA: Which brings us to Congress. That's Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell yesterday.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

MCCONNELL: We're open to serious suggestions from the experts as to what we might be able to do to be helpful.

GONYEA: But the main GOP proposal would require that a judge deny gun sales to someone on the federal terror watch list. These are small steps setting off big debates. On the surface, Trump's comments today move him just a bit toward a position held by Democrats that more restrictions are necessary. But hasn't amplified or explained his position, and it's not clear what he'll say to the NRA when he meets with them. Don Gonyea, NPR News, Atlanta. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

You're most likely to find NPR's Don Gonyea on the road, in some battleground state looking for voters to sit with him at the local lunch spot, the VFW or union hall, at a campaign rally, or at their kitchen tables to tell him what's on their minds. Through countless such conversations over the course of the year, he gets a ground-level view of American elections. Gonyea is NPR's National Political Correspondent, a position he has held since 2010. His reports can be heard on all NPR News programs and at NPR.org. To hear his sound-rich stories is akin to riding in the passenger seat of his rental car, traveling through Iowa or South Carolina or Michigan or wherever, right along with him.
News from Alabama Public Radio is a public service in association with the University of Alabama. We depend on your help to keep our programming on the air and online. Please consider supporting the news you rely on with a donation today. Every contribution, no matter the size, propels our vital coverage. Thank you.