President Trump’s advisers are reportedly split on whether it’s politically wise to announce his support for expanded gun background checks and red-flag laws. Funny: The numbers show both to be big winners.
Last month’s Fox News poll found that 90% of voters favor broader checks, including 89% of Republicans; 81% back red-flag laws to let courts bar troubled people from possessing guns.
And support is solid in the suburbs, where 91% of voters support universal checks and 80% (83% of women) back red-flag laws. This is crucial, because many of these voters abandoned the GOP in 2018; they clearly need some sign that Trump and other Republicans care about their concerns.
And these lopsided numbers make perfect sense, since the measures are so reasonable.
Sure, the National Rifle Association will warn of a slippery slope, but it aims to block anything that can appear to its donors like an infringement on gun-owner rights.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) points to 2020 Democrats calling for “mandatory” gun buybacks, and warns the feds could one day use the checks to create a registry for gun confiscation. But the government would first have to create that registry and have Congress OK confiscation — two non-starters.
Plus, the Supreme Court would have to bless taking people’s guns, despite the Second Amendment — unlikely, not least thanks to Trump’s appointments.
Besides, 87% of gun buyers already go through background checks. Why leave out the other 13%, who buy guns from private sellers?
Red-flag laws will clearly reduce the largest category of gun deaths — suicides. And universal background checks make it easier to keep guns out of the hands of people who by law already aren’t supposed to have them.
Americans overwhelmingly see that reasonable regulation is no threat to Second Amendment rights. The president will do the country and himself great good by standing with the vast majority of the nation.