Donald Trump has made it clear that he and the Second Amendment are best buds. It’s the only portion of the Bill of Rights he mentioned in any of the debates, and his go-to response when asked about the Supreme Court.
We need a Supreme Court that in my opinion is going to uphold the Second Amendment and all amendments. But the Second Amendment, which is under absolute siege.
So much siege. But Donald Trump apparently starts counting his concerns at two, because the First Amendment isn’t getting any Trump love.
“Well in England they have a system where you can actually sue if someone says something wrong. Our press is allowed to say whatever they want and get away with it.”
What is it they don’t have in England? Oh yeah. But Trump has been laying siege to the First Amendment for years, threatening both reporters and the media, in his ongoing effort to see that only his voice can be heard.
When he’s not actually filing a suit, Donald Trump is threatening to do so, and of course, he doesn’t limit his targets to just the media.
The Republican presidential nominee has made threats of litigation a regular part of his White House campaign, most recently suggesting that he would sue the various women who have accused him of sexually assaulting them. He has denied all of the allegations against him and chalked up the array of negative reporting about him to a vast conspiracy involving the media and the campaign of Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Trump has been particularly trigger-happy when it comes to go after the media. The intention of these suits hasn’t been just to shut down reporters, but to close off an outlet for those who want to speak up when Trump has done something wrong.
In response to one such threat from the Manhattan billionaire, concerning a story published by the New York Times outlining two allegations of assault against Trump, attorneys for the Times responded by writing that “if [Trump] believes that American citizens had no right to hear what these women had to say and that the law of this country forces us and those who would dare to criticize him to stand silent or be punished, we welcome the opportunity to have a court set him straight."
That is what Donald Trump believes, and there’s little doubt that if Donald Trump were in office, he would work to make that the law.
Feeling maligned by the media, Donald Trump is threatening to weaken First Amendment protections for reporters if he were president and make it easier for him to sue them.
"I love free press. I think it's great," he said Saturday on Fox News Channel, before quickly adding, "We ought to open up the libel laws, and I'm going to do that."
What was it that Trump said about the Second Amendment during the final debate?
I believe if my opponent should win this race, which I truly don't think will happen, we will have a second amendment which will be a very, very small replica of what it is right now.
Hillary Clinton has made it clear she has no intention of weakening the Second Amendment, but Donald Trump has made it just as clear: he’s going after the First.