Gun rights activists and advocates contributed to President-elect Donald Trump's amazing upset victory by actively supporting him including spending for TV advertisements during the campaign. Aside from their confidence in Trump's abilities, they also felt they have a great stake in the election. Hillary Clinton stood for stricter firearm regulation, echoing the policy stance of her fellow Democrat, outgoing President Barack Obama.
Trump's victory is also regarded by gun rights advocates as their own triumph, too. And they are looking to score more wins ahead- with Trump at the White House and a Republican-dominated Congress, gun laws in America now have the potential to be rewritten in gun rights advocates' favor. In fact, it looks like a no-lose scenario for gun rights advocates, because at the very least the Republican legislators can prevent new gun control legislation from passing. At best, they can also succeed at overturning federal gun free zones or the National Firearms Act banning automatic guns.
The new Second Amendment Caucus is just raring to lead the way for the benefit of gun owners and gun rights activists. The group's new chairman, Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, is optimistic that Trump's victory will offer a new opportunity to advance pro-gun legislation and even reverse the phenomenon of the Second Amendment erosion that's happened over the last few decades.
Even prior to the election, the Republicans have had clear success, too, as far as fighting for gun rights is concerned. They have blocked Democrats from beefing up federal firearms regulation. President Obama has been generally unsuccessful in urging Congress to pass new regulation on guns. Not that he did not try. Obama even addressed the nation fourteen times after as many mass shooting incidents in the hope of either encouraging or pressuring Congress to heed his policy preferences governing gun regulation. In fact, the outgoing president admitted that he considers failing to pass " common sense gun control regulation" as one of his biggest frustrations in his eight-year presidency.
The new caucus won't settle for mere blocking of such new legislation supporting gun control, but are aiming higher with further deregulation of the Second Amendment. The group has even called on allies and reinforcements economist John Lott and Alan Gura, the lawyer who challenged Chicago and Washington DC's handgun bans at the Supreme Court, so they can work for pro-gun reforms both at the legislative and the courts level.
Triggering the happiness indeed of gun rights activists and advocates these days aside from responsible gun ownership, of course, is the rosy prospect of a pro-gun agenda under the administration of the 45th American President, Donald Trump, whose victory they have, in no small measure, helped to pull.
