It feels like every election cycle, there are a few Democrat candidates who portray themselves as Second Amendment supporters even though that "support" is not much more than them owning a firearm. As we all know, gun ownership doesn't equate to Second Amendment advocacy. If it did, our right to keep and bear arms would be far more secure than it is.
Kamala Harris was the best example of this attempt to camouflage her anti-Second Amendment views in the 2024 elections. The media breathlessly reported that she owned a Glock (or at least did at one time), which meant she couldn't be opposed to the Second Amendment. She wasn't in favor of restricting the right to keep and bear arms, we were (repeatedly) told. She just wanted a few "common sense gun safety laws." Well, the Second Amendment isn't a membership card you get for buying a Glock. It's a constitutional right you either respect or you don't.
Some things never change, and a week out from Election Day NBC News is introducing us to this year's crop of "I support the Second Amendment, but..." Democrats.
In a duck blind south of Milwaukee, Democratic congressional candidate Mitchell Berman took a break from the campaign trail to spend some time with his dog Rusty, his Weatherby Element 20-gauge shotgun and, he hoped, some wood ducks.“I grew up hunting and fishing. I grew up going out in the woods and building forts and going trout fishing,” Berman told NBC News on a crisp early morning in a spot along the Root River that’s only accessible by hiking through brush.Berman is part of a group of Democrats hoping to start a new conversation around guns as part of a strategy to win back rural voters as their party hopes to win districts that are typically solidly Republican.
I've got nothing against hunters, but if a story starts out with a candidate in a duck blind or a deer stand, I'm already skeptical. And when it comes to Mitchell Berman, there's good reason for that.
His ads have shown Berman as a proud gun owner and hunter, hoping to connect with voters in this red district. One shows him fishing while wearing a handgun in a holster; another shows him skeet shooting with clay pigeons labeled “Data Centers.” After the target explodes in the air, his 6-year-old daughter yells, “Great shot, Dad!”“That’s who I am,” Berman said. “When I go fishing up north — where I’m from we have wolves. We have — in spring trout season, we have bears that are coming out of their dens with cubs. We’ve even had a mountain lion on our trail camera. So, you know, when I go out into the woods, I carry a sidearm with me for protection.”
I'm glad Berman recognizes the value of carrying a firearm for self-defense when he's in the woods. But what about the Wisconsinites who face threats from two-legged predators instead of four-legged ones? Does he believe they should have the same opportunity to protect themselves, or does his enthusiasm for armed self-defense end when he leaves the wilderness?
If that's who Berman is, then this is too.
I respect the Second Amendment. I grew up hunting. But, I also think we have a lot of progress to be made to help prevent gun violence. And that looks like making sure we have universal background checks. That looks like making sure we have safe storage laws so kids can't get ahold of those guns. And holding parents and gun owners responsible if they're not locking them up responsibly. Red flag laws, and banning high capacity magazines. I think those are big steps we can take towards preventing gun violence.
You won't find any of those positions on Berman's campaign website for some reason, even though he told NBC News that those were examples of "commonsense policy that will help reduce gun violence without infringing on the Second Amendment."
Democrat Bobby Pulido, who's running for Congress in south Texas, is even more vague than Berman is when it comes to support for gun control. He told NBC News that he wouldn't vote for any ban, calling that "lazy legislating," but still left the door open for what he called "smarter gun legislation" without describing what that looks like.
Note that Pulido didn't say that a ban on magazines or certain firearms would violate the Second Amendment. His objection is that bans are lazy, not an infringement on our right to keep and bear arms. And what exactly does he mean by "smarter gun legislation"? Does he believe the Second Amendment imposes meaningful limits on what Congress can enact, or is he simply looking for a more politically palatable way to restrict gun ownership? Those are questions voters deserve to have answered before deciding just how pro-Second Amendment he really is.
I would love to see some actual pro-Second Amendment candidates running as Democrats, but I wouldn't put Berman or Pulido in that camp. They might be gun owners. They might even carry a handgun sometimes. But their pitch to fellow Democrats is that they can do those things while still supporting gun control measures. When Democrats start running candidates who say "I support the Second Amendment, period," I'll cheer them on. A candidate who puts a "but" after declaring their support for the right to keep and bear arms, though, doesn't look like a Second Amendment supporter to me. They're just a gun control candidate in camouflage.