Even though we’re on pace for the busiest year in history in terms of U.S. gun sales, the Second Amendment and gun control wasn’t a topic of the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. The issues didn’t come up in either Trump or Biden’s recent town halls, and now we’ve learned that the final debate between the two presidential candidates won’t feature a single question about gun control or support for the Second Amendment either.
The Commission on Presidential debates announced on Friday the six topics for the second and final debate between President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden set to take place next week.
The topics are: “Fighting COVID-19,” “American Families,” “Race in America,” “Climate Change,” “National Security” and “Leadership.”The final debate between Trump and Biden is scheduled to take place on October 22 from 9 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. ET in Tennessee. The format is the same as the first debate: Each segment will last about 15 minutes, and the candidates will have two minutes to respond after the moderator, NBC’s Kristen Welker, opens each segment with a question. Welker will then use the rest of the time in the segment to facilitate further discussion on the topic.
According to the Gallup poll, “crime” is seen as an important issue for 79% of voters, with “gun policy” not far behind at 68%. A deeper look at the poll indicates that there’s a partisan divide on the issues, however, with far more Republicans than Democrats saying that both issues are important to them.
While 70% of Democrats or Democrat-leaners say that crime is an important issue to them, 85% of Republicans and leaners say the same thing. The gap between red and blue voters on “gun policy” is even larger. Just 60% of Democrats and leaners call gun policy and important issue, but 76% of GOP voters and leaners call the issue an important one.
Joe Biden is demanding the confiscation of millions of lawfully-owned firearms and tens of millions of legally possessed ammunition magazines, which in turn would impact tens of millions of gun owners across the country, yet he’s not going be asked a single question about it during any of the presidential debates. Instead, “climate change,” which Gallup found was an important issue to just 55% of respondents (and only 23% of Republicans) will be included in the final debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
If Biden does manage to get to Election Day without ever being asked tough questions about his anti-gun policy proposals, the media won’t just have failed to do its job, it will have actively aided and abetted the Biden campaign in its strategy to duck an issue that is critically important to broad swaths of the electorate. Ignorance won’t be blissful for the voters who’ve been told repeatedly that Biden’s only in favor of “common sense gun safety regulations” without ever learning the truth behind the Democratic candidate’s actual agenda.
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