Former president Donald Trump addressed the embattled NRA in Dallas as the race for the White House heats up. There he promised to protect gun rights and roll back some of president Biden's gun reforms. @jayobtv talks to voters. https://t.co/ezEiVKcUUc pic.twitter.com/4THzUwbnHV
— World News Tonight (@ABCWorldNews) May 19, 2024
Per the Texas Tribune, “Trump, Abbott paint gun rights as imperiled at NRA convention”:
At the National Rifle Association’s annual convention on Saturday, Donald Trump and Gov. Greg Abbott encouraged the thousands gathered to vote for Trump in the 2024 presidential election as a way to ensure their Second Amendment rights…
Trump and Abbott spoke to a room packed with NRA members, some of which sported supportive attire from the standard-fare red caps to a dress covered with photos of the former president.
During the convention, the NRA released its endorsement for the 45th president, and the Trump political campaign announced the launch for the “Gun Owners for Trump” coalition.
Abbott touted his track record on gun rights by pointing to Texas laws passed last year, such as House Bill 3137 which prohibits local governments from requiring firearm owners to buy liability insurance. To energetic applause, he said the law ensured people would not be forced to pay to exercise their Second Amendment rights.
Almost to the day, the NRA convention takes place two years after the Uvalde school shooting, where an 18-year-old gunned down an elementary school with a legally purchased assault rifle. The shooter killed 19 fourth-graders and two teachers with an AR-15 style rifle…
“Donald Trump and Texas Republicans made the gun violence epidemic worse, especially in our state, where we have seen nine mass shootings just in the last 15 years,” said a statement by Gilberto Hinojosa, the Texas Democratic Party Chair, on Friday. “Even after Uvalde parents pleaded with Greg Abbott and Ted Cruz for commonsense gun safety laws, they decided, like Trump, that the NRA and gun lobby was more important.”
Instead the legislature approved a school safety bill that established preventative measures toward school shootings. The law included a mandate that every school must hire an armed security officer and the creation of a department within the Texas Education Agency that can compel districts to adhere to active-shooter protocols…
2/2 Texas Rally for Gun Violence Prevention & #NRA Accountability at Dallas City Hall Saturday morning.
Pics of local Dallas #MomsDemandAction chapter leaders and pro-gun safety North Texas politicians.👏🏻👏🏻 👏🏻 pic.twitter.com/QFTzdVThzh
— Scott Uhl (@ScottUhlTX) May 18, 2024
Per Politico, “Trump at NRA convention floats a three-term presidency”:
… “You know, FDR 16 years — almost 16 years — he was four terms. I don’t know, are we going to be considered three-term? Or two-term?” Trump quipped at the National Rifle Association annual meeting, speaking before a crowd of gun rights supporters.
Some in the crowd shouted in response: “Three.”…
During a meandering speech in Dallas, Trump addressed thousands of gun rights supporters on Saturday. The former president spoke about guns and the Second Amendment, but also tackled immigration, foreign policy, the economy and abortion. He at one point slammed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as “radical left,” while continuing his attacks on Biden and CNN about the debates…
Trump, intermittently pivoting back to the gun issue, spoke before a vastly different NRA than the one that threw its support behind him just eight years ago. In May 2016, the organization backed Trump and would go on to spend more than $30 million to help send him to the White House. On Saturday, the NRA endorsed Trump again, support that comes as both the former president and the nation’s top gun group face mounting legal challenges, raising questions about how much money the organization will be able to put behind Trump’s 2024 bid to return to power…
Trump used Saturday’s speech — his ninth time addressing the nation’s top gun lobby — to gin up enthusiasm among some of his staunchest supporters, a key constituency for fundraising. The NRA cheered Trump during his first term in office, as he appointed three conservative Supreme Court justices and took steps pushed by the gun lobby, including his designation of gun and ammunition retailers as critical infrastructure during Covid.
Trump also used the venue to rail against President Joe Biden’s restrictions on gun ownership and vowed to roll back gun safety provisions passed by his administration.
Biden has taken a number of steps to tackle gun violence, issuing a slew of executive actions and establishing the first-ever federal office of gun violence prevention — moves that have angered the gun lobby. The president most recently moved to expand background checks for gun purchases, in an effort to eliminate a loophole that has allowed sales of guns without background checks outside of brick-and-mortar stores.
As Trump headlined the event, the weight of the NRA’s backing and its relevance in the country’s politics this cycle is increasingly murky. The group has been embattled with scandals, internal power struggles and lawsuits that have emptied its coffers, spurring uncertainty about how much cash it can put forward to support Trump at a time his own war chest lags behind Biden’s.
“No matter what you’ve heard, we are strong. We are healthy. We are resolute, committed and united as ever,” said Andrew Arulanandam, interim CEO and executive vice president of the NRA, before Trump’s speech…
Trump starts playing QAnon music during his bizarre slur-filled NRA speech pic.twitter.com/tprP3rRxMR
— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) May 18, 2024
… Addressing thousands of members of the NRA at their annual meeting in Texas, the former president stuck to his usual talking points, hailing the reversal of Roe v. Wade as an “amazing thing,” comparing himself to Al Capone, and insisting “genius” runs in his bloodline.
Then, as he wound down, in a disorienting shift, sentimental music began to play and Trump furrowed his brow and shook his head to deliver the grim message that America is “a failing nation.”
In a monologue set to melodramatic instrumental music, Trump described the current state of the country as if he were breaking the news to a small child that his mother had just died: “Now we are a nation in decline. We are a failing nation. We are a nation that has the highest inflation in 58 years, where banks are collapsing, and interest rates are skyrocketing.”…
“Where, and who, are these people, that would do this to our country? Who are these people who would ruin us and make us look like fools?” he said, before calling the U.S. a “drug-infested, crime-ridden nation, incapable of solving even the simplest of problems.”
With an economy that is collapsing into “a cesspool of ruin,” Trump said, and an educational system “at the bottom of every list,” America is no longer “admired” or even “listened to” on the world stage, he claimed.
He went on to call those who attacked the U.S. Capitol Building on Jan. 6 “hostages” who have been “unfairly imprisoned” simply for staging a “protest.”…
The list of grievances and horror stories went on and on, veering off at one point to “dirty” airports, where Trump claimed “you sit and wait for hours and then are notified that the plane won’t leave and they have no idea when they will.” To stop such “horror,” he said, NRA members need to “fight for America like no one has ever fought before” in the “final battle” that is the 2024 presidential election, vowing to “liberate our country from these tyrants and villains.”
Guess who banned guns today?!
NRA banned guns at Trump’s speech in Dallas
Trump bans guns at Mar-a-Lago, Trump Tower & all his properties
He bans guns at all his Klan rallies
But Trump has the nerve to tell us to just “get over it” when our kids are murdered?!
GIMME A BREAK
— Lindy Li (@lindyli) May 18, 2024
Baud
It works. People got over it.
MattF
Given that report was from Politico, Trump’s speech must have been a disaster.
ETA: Texas Tribune. Still a disaster.
Geo Wilcox
Didn’t he do a 2 minutes Mitch glitch at this thing?
Harrison Wesley
@Baud: Well, sure. Swim around the fishbowl a few times, and all those unpleasant memories and sensations and feelings will just wash right away.
catclub
huh?? 1966? how about the 70’s?
bbleh
You might as well try to talk sense to a ward full of delusional schizophrenics as call out these folks on the basis of facts or logic.
They still deserve affordable healthcare, clean air & water, safe food & drugs, decent schools, etc. But as far as I’m concerned, they’re write-offs.
@Geo Wilcox: saw a remark about this elsewhere, said they’re blaming it on a teleprompter. ETA, oh also it was deliberate, for “dramatic effect.” See at https://www.tiktok.com/@harryjsisson/video/7370523452954053934?_r=1&_t=8mTKGOb7xT
and Irish Times describes the speech as “slur-laden.”
He’s gonna have to dose pretty heavy for that debate. Assuming he shows up.
Jeffro
His weirdo music and dramatic pauses actually make me laugh. I think he’s “seeing” himself in some sort of TV Bizarro-land version of himself, complete with a soundtrack.
Could someone please get this orange pile of crap a deep-fried Big Mac or eight and hurry this shit along?
Shalimar
We saw Uvalde. Hundreds of officers from every agency imaginable stood outside and did nothing. What good does hiring more armed security officers do? They take their pay and turn coward as soon as the shooting starts.
Harrison Wesley
@Jeffro: I think he’s trying for a Hannibal Lecter stand-up routine.
Harrison Wesley
A bad guy with a gun has two options in Texas: get put down by a good guy with a gun or get pardoned by the governor.
Jeffro
@Harrison Wesley: I’m good with that, although he will have trouble keeping up – Hannibal was way, way smarter.
TBone
@Jeffro: well said, my sentiments exactly. He’s such a pile of nothingness, all his effort to the contrary makes me guffaw. And those court room scowls merely make him look like he needs to poop.
Loserville.
Baud
@Jeffro:
And a better cook.
Mousebumples
My oldest will be starting kindergarten in the fall, and I feel like I need to talk to her about the potential for school shootings before they do their first drill or whatever. I just… have no idea where to start.
I was on hs for Columbine and college for Virginia Tech… And I don’t know that I’ve ever had a shooter drill, though I’ve totally taken work trainings.
It just makes me feel so hopeless. I’m hoping we can change laws and make things safer, but I, just… my little.
Suggestions or commiserations are welcome. I know I’m not the first parent to feel this way.
zhena gogolia
@Mousebumples: I certainly commiserate. It’s disgusting.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
yeah, it’s called the free market. corporations understaff, underpay, and overwork their employees to squeeze out an cent for quarterly earnings.
Bill
Since Trump is a moron he doesn’t know that FDR was not president for almost 16 years. He died less than three months into his fourth term.
lowtechcyclist
The gun humpers want OTHER people to sacrifice their lives for THEIR freedoms. How heroic.
AM in NC
I have two kids who will be voting for President for the first time this year. Their top issues are guns and climate and reproductive freedom, and they will absolutely be voting for Democrats across the board.
A LOT of young people care about the gun issue, and ads contrasting Biden/Democrats’ actions to curb gun violence with Trump actively courting gun humpers and boasting that he will undo everything Democrats got enacted should be effective. I hope Biden’s social media people are all over this one.
Baud
@AM in NC:
👍
zhena gogolia
@AM in NC: Your kids are smart!
Scout211
My daughter has been a kinder teacher for many years and these issues do come up in her classroom with students and with parents. She is very cognizant that what works for the older students does not always work for the kinder students when discussing such huge issues. Even concepts like diversity have to be discussed in ways that a kinder student can understand.
What I would suggest is to talk with your daughter’s teacher to get an idea of how to have that discussion in a developmentally appropriate way for your daughter. In some school districts the teachers have that discussion with the students. It depends on your district, though.
Gloria DryGarden
please. ASAP
Doc Sardonic
@TBone: That’s the common loading the diaper look after he wakes up from his nap
Scout211
@Mousebumples:
Google “How to talk to your kids about school shootings” and you find a long list of a links to articles with help and suggestions. Here’s a news story from the Today Show with an age-by-age guide.
Added:
dmsilev
By all means, I encourage NRA members to bring their emotional support weaponry to the airport and insist on taking it with them to the gates. We could all use the feel-good video that would ensue.
dmsilev
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch: He’s probably miffed about his plane in particular, nothing to do with normal commercial travel. Maybe he forgot to pay the maintenance bills again.
Baud
@dmsilev:
@dmsilev:
It’s his response to Pete Buttigieg making airlines give refunds for cancelling flights.
Gloria DryGarden
@Mousebumples: I sub in the schools. We have the lock down and lockout drills with the little ones. The teacher has a way of explaining it. Imagine keeping 3 or 4 year olds quiet, still, and huddled out of sight for 10 whole minutes… I usually cry during these practices, because even if it’s a practice (they don’t always tell us) it’s so serious. The regular teacher glares at me to indicate I must not cry or show fear myself in front of the kids.
I’m never the one to explain; I think I’d just say, it’s practice, in case anything serious happens. I hate it.
Melancholy Jaques
@Baud:
If Sandy Hook didn’t change things, nothing will.
Still amazed that Alex Jones isn’t universally reviled for that. And I wonder if anyone has collected a dollar of that judgment.
Mousebumples
@Scout211: makes sense, thank you! I have teachers in my family… But all in the HS (or older) level. Or a retired elementary librarian, who probably retired in the early 2000s.
I’d love a book to read and talk through. But I’m big on using books to help make topics relatable and age appropriate.
Mousebumples
@Scout211: thanks for the links. I’ll have to read through this later.
@Gloria DryGarden: absolutely get it. I can’t read “I’ll Love You Forever” without tearing up. I have no idea how I’ll get through this conversation. 😭 But it feels necessary.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
@dmsilev:
MAGA privilege at its highest, thinking its okay to bring a loaded gun through a metal detector onto a plane.
Gloria DryGarden
@dmsilev: I was just thinking that.
For sure, a gun in your hand will influence the pilots to disregard weather and safety equipment concerns. Sit these guys on the Boeing, next to the door…
SiubhanDuinne
O/T as all fuck, but I can’t help myself:
A couple of days ago, for whatever obscure reason, I decided I needed to play with a Newton’s Cradle. And, since I didn’t have one handy, I ordered an inexpensive one through Amazon. It arrived today, and to my slight surprise, it needs a small amount of assembly before I can go whack-whack-whack with the pendula. So I looked at the list of parts enclosed, and the first two listed are “BALL WIPER” and “EXTRA BALL,” and now I am laughing and gasping for breath like a smutty 12-year-old boy.
Baud
@Melancholy Jaques:
Dems got more serious about guns after Sandy Hook. The rest of the people shrugged.
Martin
@dmsilev: TSA confiscates about 20 guns a day, most loaded. That number is going up substantially each year. It was 12 a day just 3 years ago.
MagdaInBlack
@SiubhanDuinne: When I worked in a small town hardware store, I found the same juvenile amusement with “nut splitters” and “stud finders.”
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne:
My grandfather was a ball wiper for the king! I’m offended!
SiubhanDuinne
@MagdaInBlack:
Hahaha! “Stud finders” I know; “nut splitters” I don’t. But they sound right up my inner little kid’s alley.
Rathskeller
@Mousebumples: I would check in with their teacher, so that you have the same message. At my kid’s school, the message for the K-2 grades, was that they had to practice drills in case a dangerous dog was nearby. I don’t know when they got the real story.
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
You should be proud!
Another Scott
@Mousebumples: Maybe talk about it in terms of “safety drills” rather than guns? The same types of things apply for tornadoes and fires and the like – be calm, listen to the teacher, follow instructions, take care of your classmates, etc.
HTH a little.
Good luck!
Cheers,
Scott.
lgerard
The annual NRA convention is an opportunity to once again enjoy the pantsing of Wayne LaPierre by the Good Liars at the 2022 convention
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywPZ3fMlpro
SiubhanDuinne
@Mousebumples:
I wish I could help. I can’t, so I’ll just offer a limitless quantity of virtual {{{{{hugs}}}}} to you and your youngster. I wish her joy. I wish her to be safe and to not even know what that means.
Mike in NC
Fat Bastard will squeeze the fascist NRA for every dime he can scam from them. He has no new tricks to play.
lowtechcyclist
@SiubhanDuinne:
Firesign Theatre: I Was A Cock-Teaser For Roosterama! (youtube.com)
Omnes Omnibus
@Another Scott: That’s actually really good. Sesame Street FTW. A lot of that advice is good for adults in tough situations as well.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
Sesame Street is consistently good.
Jay
@SiubhanDuinne:
it’s ring device that fits around a nut, and using a wrench or socket, to turn a bolt with a sharp tip into the nut, it causes the nut to split on one side, allowing a seized or frozen nut to be removed, with out damage to the bolt or stud.
Suzanne
@MagdaInBlack: Oh dude. Architectural specifications detail requirements for sex nuts and steel erection.
MagdaInBlack
@Suzanne: LOL 🤗
Eta: I was of the opinion that every woman, at some point in her life, needed an accurate stud finder.
KrackenJack
@MagdaInBlack:
There’s a very old joke about a woman taking over her husband’s hardware store for a day. He warns her that the clientele are rough working men. She’s pleasantly surprised by the first few customers. Then one asks her, “Where are the bastard files?”
“Next to the fucking hammers,” she replied.
Mousebumples
@Rathskeller: Oooh, fair. I’ll at least wait until Meet Your Teacher night, though it might need to be an email since I’m not sure that I’d have out of kid earshot time on that kind of night.
@Another Scott: yeah, fair. I’d like to think a kinder teacher knows how to approach this, but I can also see it going sideways with my little very, very scared. I know she’s done fire safety drills at daycare. (book recommendation – No Dragons For Tea)
@SiubhanDuinne: thanks. *hugs back at you
catclub
I am convinced that was Russian money.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Geo Wilcox: I read that too in the reporting last night. Not mentioned intbese reports tho, sigh. Just like Mitch McConnell.
Eyeroller
@KrackenJack: Here’s another one. Clerk at hardware store is helping a customer (usually cast as a woman) who says she wants a <various type of> connector. The clerk asks “Do you want a male or a female? The customer blinks and says “I just want to hook this up, I don’t want to breed them.”
pat
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch:
Hey, didn’t Pete do something about that? Like, they have to refund your money or something?
MagdaInBlack
@Eyeroller: 🤗
dmsilev
@MagdaInBlack: I can beat that. Years ago, I had a project that borrowed some software that astronomers used to analyze telescope photos. It was called ‘Source Extractor’, and in the manner of UNIX software, installed itself in a directory with an abbreviated version of the name. Hence, I was the proud owner of a ‘sextractor’ folder, complete with a ‘sextools’ subdirectory and probably some others that I’ve thankfully forgotten.
Melancholy Jaques
@Baud:
I was thinking of the general public. I expected that it would start a movement like Mothers Against Drunk Drivers. That took a few years, but laws changed, police and judges changed. And more importantly, the behavior of the culture as a whole changed. See also, smoking indoors
It is neither the first nor the last time my fellow citizens have left me stunned and disappointed.
Baud
@Melancholy Jaques:
I recently saw a TV ad for the Sandy Hook Foundation or something like that. I know there’s been progress in blue states. But drunk driving was never a real national election issue, and it appears guns won’t be, at least for the good side.
Chet Murthy
@Melancholy Jaques: You’re not alone in being stunned and disappointed. The recent conversation here about auto accident fatalities, and how they’ve increased in the US, whereas they’re still dropping in other Western countries, is a piece with that. As is the recent antivaxxerism, antimaskerism, and general movement of “you’re not the boss of me.”
It’s all pretty depressing, isn’t it? Makes you wonder: if MADD tried to do something about drunk driving from a standing start today, maybe they might not have succeeded.
Nukular Biskits
@Baud:
Well, not all of us but your point definitely, and unfortunately, has a lot of truth to it.
Chet Murthy
@Baud:
I think you’re right about that (or at least, I don’t remember any opposition to those laws). But it *was* a national issue, right? I mean, the drive to raise drinking age to 21 was national, using the leverage of federal highway funding to force states to do it, right ?
P.S. It was a time when we could agree on things like that, eh? Only a few years earlier, I remember lining up to get the polio vaxx at my elementary school, from the nurse.
eclare
@Chet Murthy:
Yep. LA was the last state to raise the age.
Martin
@Melancholy Jaques: the movement got started by young people – March for Our Lives, BLM, etc. They’ve gotten a number of members elected so far. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson in TN are part of this broader movement. Their expulsions were directly related to gun control measures. Maxwell Frost is also part of this movement.
MADD had a similar trajectory with it taking some years for members to get elected and then grind out bills, until they build a majority, and then things happen.
But with MADD, there was no pro-drunk driving political constituency. There definitely a pro-guns-in-school constituency, so this is going to be MUCH harder to achieve, especially with a high court that is generally favorable to the pro-guns-in-school constituency.
Martin
Things not looking too promising for the President of Iran.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: Sandy Hook Promise.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Yes. Thanks.
Geminid
@Martin: Raisi came down in a remote area. It’s part of a protected area on application to be U.N. World Heritage site on account of its rare mountain forests.
The Iranians have a lot of search and rescue resources on hand, so they should find the helicopter after daybreak.
Ksmiami
@MattF: the NRA /Magas are scum, filth, traitor trash. We need to destroy them to move America forward.
WaterGirl
Just $96.91 left to meet our goal for VAAC. Fingers crossed that we can finish it tonight.
The 96.91 is a 4x match! After that, the thermometer comes down. :-)
Big thanks to everyone who helped get us here!
Ksmiami
@bbleh: they don’t deserve those things and based on their voting, they don’t want them.
Indycat32
@WaterGirl: Done.
Mai Naem mobile
I thought the NRA was completely broke. I am surprised they had the money to put up a national convention. Between TFG and the NRA, neither has the $$$ for security and traffic costs to pay Dallas. I wonder if Abbott got involved in some way to force Dallas to foot those bills.
hotshoe
@Bill:
“He died less than three months into his fourth term … ”
If Dirty Don somehow wins/steals his way into a second term, we are all going to have to pray that he doesn’t die in three months. Even if it happened in full public view, even if he is standing on a sidewalk and just keels over without anyone touching him, even if the quick and reassuring medical report is that he had a massive non-survivable heart attack — I expect that the MAGAts would commit widespread violence to revenge whatever fantasy conspiracy theories would instantly pop up about “deep state killed him”.
We know about Thug politicians promoting “2nd amendment solution”, we know about stochastic terrorism, we know about the Proud Boys and suchlike groups; imagine if they all go insane with rage all at once.
It’s hard to remember our history: there have been entire centuries where basically everyone accepted the results of democratic elections and anyone who would claim “election was stolen” would be shunned as a nutcase.
Something like one third of all Americans are inclined to agree that the 2020 election was stolen. Buckle up, it’s gonna be a bumpy ride for the next year.
BellyCat
@Mousebumples: I’m with you. Kiddo is finishing second grade in a public school and, yes, he’s had active shooter drills.
How can this not leave a psychic mark on children so young?
Fuck the NRA and all the weirdo gun humpers.
Betty Cracker
@Mousebumples: My kid (now inexplicably 25 years old!) had shooter drills and one lockdown incident in middle school. It definitely leaves a scar — on the family too if you get a panicky text from your kid. It’s the most helpless feeling in the world.
I couldn’t find a sane way to have a conversation about this country’s sick gun culture, except to help the kids in my life confront the issue via March for Our Lives participation, voter registration, etc.
The Parkland kids are about the same age, and they moved the needle, even in this gun-humping hell-state. Showed it can be done!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Perhaps someone should modestly propose to Governor Abbot that the way to solve this abortion issue is for the husband to shoot his pregnant wife in the stomach, kill the baby and then Abbot can issue a pardon. That should be utterly insane enough for the Right.
Jackie
@Martin: Nor the Prime Minister. He was also on the helicopter.
Jackie
@Geminid: Plus, Iran borrowed a helicopter from Turkey fitted with special night search equipment. I’m surprised Iran apparently doesn’t have their own!
Eyeroller
@Jackie: Sanctions, probably. They also have old helicopters and difficulty sourcing parts. Even well-maintained, modern helicopters are more dangerous than fixed-wing aircraft and Iran’s apparently mostly date to before the Revolution.
Sister Golden Bear
“Mass shootings today. Mass shootings tomorrow. Mass shootings forever!”
Gvg
@Jackie: helicopters are complicated and hard to maintain. The US is unusual in how many we use and maintain. Every big disaster it seems like the help other countries want from us is helicopters. Even France has asked for them. Search and rescue or supplies to remote areas. New Zealand also likes helicopters but most countries don’t.