President-elect Donald Trump ran, in part, on being pro-gun. The NRA backed him and he vowed to defend our right to keep and bear arms. When he picked Matt Gaetz as attorney general, my heart jumped for joy to some degree simply because Gaetz wants to dismantle the ATF. He’s as pro-gun as they come and he wasn’t interested in playing games with our gun rights.
Gaetz, however, had some baggage and he withdrew his name from consideration because it didn’t look like he’d get confirmed. Trump then nominated former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, who’s been a major Trump supporter. She also happened to have made some anti-gun moves during her time in office, though, which is a problem.
Still, it’s one pick and Trump may well intend to ride herd over her on guns.
Yet his pick for DEA is just as troubling, as noted over at The Reload.
For the second time in as many weeks, the President-elect has tapped a person with a history of supporting gun-control measures to fill a senior federal law enforcement position.
Donald Trump announced over the weekend his plans to nominate Chad Chronister (R.), the current Sheriff of Florida’s Hillsborough County, to lead the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). As recently as 2019, Chronister expressed support for “enhanced mental health screening” for anyone who wants to own a gun, universal background checks, and Florida’s “red flag” law.
“We all as a society need to do more about gun safety and those who possess firearms,” Chronister said after stopping a copycat mass shooting threat in the wake of 2019’s El Paso shooting, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
While the DEA has little to do with crafting gun policy, the pick represents a new trend of announced nominees to lead key law enforcement agencies who’ve run afoul of gun-right activists. That signals other factors beyond gun policy are driving many of Trump’s cabinet appointments.
This is, in fact, troubling. The only good news is that Chronister has already withdrawn his name from consideration. Well, that and the fact that the DEA really doesn’t have anything to do with guns.
Yet this bothers me a great deal, in part because pro-gun Trump seems to be picking folks with anti-gun baggage.
On one hand, it could well be that while he’s pro-gun, he doesn’t expect his nominees to be, especially if it either doesn’t matter or they directly report to him and he can keep their anti-gun tendencies in check.
But as noted at The Reload, Trump has suggested support for things like red flag laws and he was the one who directed the ATF to issue the bump stock ban. Granted, that last was because Congress looked ready to pass their own version that would have gone much farther than just bump stocks, but I also seem to recall Trump being willing to sign that into law if it came across his desk, too.
So is Trump as pro-gun has he claimed?
Frankly, I’m not sure it mattered. He was far more pro-gun than his opponent, so he was the only rational choice unless you voted third-party. However, I do hope that what we’re seeing in the nomination process doesn’t turn out to be a sign of things to come over the next four years.
Read the full article here
