WASHINGTON — Two top National Rifle Association officials took aim at Donald Trump on Sunday, blasting his suggestion that armed clubgoers could have prevented the deadliest mass shooting in US history as one that “defies common sense.”
“No one thinks that people should go into a nightclub drinking and carrying firearms,” said Chris Cox, executive director of the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action told ABC’s “This Week.” “That defies common sense. It also defies the law.”
Trump fired up a Texas rally on Friday by saying if some people at the Pulse nightclub “had guns strapped … right to their waist or right to their ankle” it would have “beautiful sight” to have them shoot “the son of a bitch.”
But Cox’s statement echoed President Obama, who said last Thursday during a visit to Orlando that the notion that similarly armed clubgoers would avert the tragedy “defies common sense.”
But Wayne LaPiere, NRA’s CEO, said Sunday that pistol-packing revelers are not a realistic solution.
“I don’t think you should have firearms where people are drinking,” LaPiere told CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
The NRA has endorsed Trump, who has run on a platform of protecting gun owners and the Second Amendment and arming the law-abiding citizens to stop bad guys.
But since Omar Mateen slaughtered 49 people in Orlando last week, Trump announced he wants to meet with the NRA and urged the powerful gun lobby to compromise, such as banning people on terror watch lists from buying guns.
“We have to make sure that people that are terrorists or have even an inclination toward terrorism cannot buy weapon, guns,” Trump told ABC’s “This Week.”
The NRA said last week that its policy is that the feds should investigate anyone who is on a terror watch list who is trying to buy a gun. “Due process protections should be put in place that allow law-abiding Americans who are wrongly put on a watch list to be removed,” the NRA statement says.
But Cox told “This Week” that, “there is not a difference between what Mr. Trump is saying and what the NRA’s position is.”
On Monday, the Senate will vote on a series of gun control measures. The NRA has offered its blessing to a proposal by Texas Sen. John Cornyn that is not an outright ban on firearm sales, but would allow the authorities to block a gun sale for someone on the terror watch list or someone subject to FBI investigation within the last five years if they can show probable cause within three days before a judge. The Justice Department is backing different legislation by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.)
The NRA has not abandoned it’s core position that any ban on assault-style firearms, or more gun control laws would be ineffective in stopping future attacks.
“Criminals and terrorists aren’t going to be deterred by one more gun control law,” Cox told ABC.
It’s up to law-abiding citizens to come up with their own security plan because terrorists are “coming and they’re going to try to kill us, and we need to be prepared,” LaPierre said.
Meanwhile, Trump said today it’s a “shame” the authorities didn’t follow up on a tip from a gun shop owner who was suspicious of Mateen.
“I’m a big fan of the FBI, but they had a little bit of a bad day,” Trump told “This Week.”
He also said he doesn’t like the concept of racial profiling, but the US should consider using it to stop terrorism. “I think profiling is something that we’re going to have to start thinking about as a country,” he told CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “I hate the concept of profiling. But we have to start using common sense and we have to use, you know, we have to use our heads.”
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi relished in Trump’s slumping poll numbers after a fresh string of controversial statements, starting with going after a Mexican-American federal judge.
“Bless his heart, Donald Trump is the gift that keeps giving to us,” Pelosi told John Catsimatidis AM 970 in New York.
