Joe Biden was the gun control lobby's best friend over the past four years. From enacting a slew of executive actions aimed at lawful gun owners to staffing a White House office with anti-gun activists, Biden not only waged war on the firearms industry but gave substantial aid and comfort to those trying to strip the Second Amendment out of the Constitution.
Even if Biden hadn't been replaced by Donald Trump the gun control lobby would be having a moment today, but the thought of a pro-2A president settling back into the Oval Office seems to have caused a meltdown among some of the modern day prohibitionists.
Everytown for Gun Safety chose to accentuate their successes over the past four years, as well as to take credit for a reported decrease in the violent crime rate.
Thank you, @JoeBiden and @KamalaHarris, for leading the strongest gun safety administration in history. Now, we fight to preserve and build upon the progress we’ve made. pic.twitter.com/J1lbbLsAe2
— Everytown (@Everytown) January 19, 2025
The only folks crediting gun control for the reported drop in violent crime are gun control activists and the politicians who benefit from their campaign donations. Whether or not crime really dropped last year is an open question, and the FBI's quiet upward revisions of the 2023 Uniform Crime Report showed violent crime actually increased two years ago, as opposed to dropping as the FBI originally reported.
It is true that homicides appear to have declined substantially last year, but again, no one's crediting the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act or any of Biden's executive actions. In Baltimore, officials credit the almost 40% reduction in homicides on a strategy focusing on the most violent and prolifict offenders, not the state's Handgun Qualification License or "assault weapon" ban. In fact, it's worth noting that murders have plummeted in Maryland at the same time the number of active concealed carry licensees has grown by leaps and bounds over the "may issue" days that ended in 2022.
While Everytown tried to play up Biden's record on guns, the folks at Giffords decided to take a swipe at Donald Trump instead.
Today, Donald Trump will be sworn in as the first president of the U.S. who is prohibited from owning a gun.
— GIFFORDS (@GIFFORDS_org) January 20, 2025
Let that sink in.
Yeah, until Trump pardons himself I suppose that is the case. But Trump is also the first president of the United States to be convicted in a kangaroo court. He's also the first president to have lost his right to keep and bear arms because of a felony conviction for a non-violent crime; something that will hopefully give him a unique perspective on the absurdity of the existing federal law regarding prohibited persons.
The biggest meltdown from the anti-gun crowd came from March For Our Lives.
The fight for our lives doesn’t stop. Today, it gets harder. But we’ve been here before. March For Our Lives was founded in the shadow of Trump’s first administration. If there’s one thing we know how to do, it’s fight Trump. The roots of our movement run deep, and despite the…
— March For Our Lives ☮️🟧 (@AMarch4OurLives) January 20, 2025
In the streets.
— March For Our Lives ☮️🟧 (@AMarch4OurLives) January 20, 2025
In the courts.
In the halls of power.
We are EVERYWHERE.
We’re not slowing down, not backing off, and sure as hell not going quiet.
Let’s make this year one that terrifies anyone who wants to silence us.
MFOL is widely seen as the youth wing of the gun control lobby, so it's worth noting that, according to a new CBS News poll, it's the youngest adults who are most excited about Trump's second term in office.
People aged 18-29 are +34 points optimistic for the Trump presidency, the most optimistic age cohort
— Wesley Yang (@wesyang) January 19, 2025
People 65+ are +2 optimistic for the Trump presidency, the least optimistic age cohort https://t.co/xbzX6V0AmF
For the record, I don't want to silence March For Our Lives or any other anti-gun group. I like the First Amendment as much as the Second, and I firmly believe that our rights should be as robust as possible.
I do, however, want them to lose in the streets, the courts, and the halls of power. Last November's historic elections defanged the gun control threat at the federal level for at least two years, and Second Amendment advocates can now start to go on offense when it comes to things like national right-to-carry reciprocity and deregulating suppressors. Still, the gun control lobby will redouble their efforts in blue states, and until the Supreme Court puts them in check we're going to continue to see fundamental infringements on our Second Amendment rights. The inauguration of Donald J. Trump is a great thing for gun owners and 2A supporters, but there's still a lot of work to be done in order to strengthen and secure those rights.
