Speaking at a rally in Wilmington, North Carolina on Tuesday, Donald Trump made an offhand comment that "Second Amendment people" might have some unspecified way to stop a President Hillary Clinton’s judges from abolishing gun rights.
"Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish the Second Amendment," Trump said. "By the way, and if she gets to pick — if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know."
Trump’s remarks are a bit garbled, but they appear to be a joke that gun owners could use their weaponry to prevent the government from rolling back their gun rights. Here’s the full context of his statement, via Politico:
Donald Trump: "Hillary wants to essentially abolish the Second Amendment." pic.twitter.com/jEppTyaUbS
— POLITICO (@politico) August 9, 2016
Commentators soon debated what, exactly, Trump may have meant.
Did Donald Trump really just semi-incite someone to shoot Hillary Clinton or any federal judge that she appoints? https://t.co/ykUvZ6cd7s
— Paige Williams (@williams_paige) August 9, 2016
I think he meant you could shoot the judges.
— Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT) August 9, 2016
From context, it's also possible that Trump was floating idea of armed rebellion against bad SCOTUS decisions, not assassination.
— Philip Klein (@philipaklein) August 9, 2016
Trump will say he wants 2nd amendment advocates to convince Senate to block Clinton pick. Keep in mind his advisor called for her to be shot
— Sam Stein (@samsteinhp) August 9, 2016
Eventually, the Trump campaign released a statement claiming he was just referring to "the power of unification" to stop Clinton's election, which really doesn't seem to be the case based on the original context — as Sam Stein points out, he was talking about judges she'd appoint after she already won.
Just another day of the 2016 campaign.
