In May 2016, near the zenith of its political sway, the National Rifle Association endorsed Donald Trump for president in a symbolic but forceful show of support for a Republican whose commitment to gun owners was still largely unknown. The group then spent more than $30 million to help elect Trump that November.
Trump arrives here Saturday for the NRA’s annual convention having proven himself a reliable ally of Second Amendment activists over the intervening eight years. Significantly less clear, though, is how much the NRA can help Trump’s bid to win the White House once again.
The NRA enters the 2024 election cycle with its future uncertain and relevance in question. A series of cascading scandals related to financial misconduct have badly damaged the reputation and coffers of the nation’s most prominent gun rights group, culminating in February with a New York jury finding the organization and top executives liable in a civil corruption case. Amid the turmoil, the NRA’s longtime CEO, Wayne LaPierre, stepped down. After several years of internal power struggles, the organization will attempt this weekend to install new leadership.
It’s a stunning fall for a group that at its peak commanded enough Republican votes in Congress to stall almost any action to restrict firearms, even amid periods of national grief over mass shootings
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Suplina said Trump’s NRA appearance “shows that both the organization and the man are a bit desperate for each other. Trump needs the crowd, the NRA needs the political relevance.”
As with many issues, Trump’s stance on gun control has shifted throughout his decades in the public spotlight. Prior to running for office, Trump supported an assault weapons ban, but he backed away from that stance during his first presidential campaign.
After a gunman opened fire at a Parkland, Florida, high school in 2018, killing 17 students and staff, Trump appeared to briefly embrace a host of measures to restrict gun sales, only to quickly pivot again amid intense lobbying from the NRA.
Trump did address one concern of gun safety activists when his administration moved unilaterally to ban bump stocks, devices that enables a rifle to fire hundreds of rounds of ammunition per minute. The Supreme Court earlier this year heard oral arguments in a case seeking to overturn the Trump-era regulation.
“If President Trump regrets that decision, that’s something he should come out and say because gun owners are not going to forget that,” said Aidan Johnston, a lobbyist for the Gun Owners of America, an organization that has at times criticized the NRA for not being vigilant enough in pushing for fewer gun restrictions.
People browse guns for sale, during the Novi Gun and Knife Show at Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi, Mich. on Feb. 24, 2018.
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Trump’s relative inaction stood at the heart of the stark divisions that emerged between Biden and Trump over firearms during their 2020 race. Among both gun safety advocates and gun rights groups, there’s little disagreement about the stakes in 2024.
Johnston called Biden “perhaps the most anti-gun president in American history.” Suplina said the current commander-in-chief was “the strongest gun-sense president in history.”
Biden as president has championed new restrictions on firearms, including bipartisan passage in 2022 of the most comprehensive gun safety legislation in three decades – a sweeping bill to strengthen background checks. Biden has also created the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention and has issued a range of modest executive measures aimed at reducing gun violence.
Among them are new regulations on the makers of “ghost guns” kits, which allow people to build untraceable guns at home, requiring the same compliance with federal laws imposed on commercially sold firearms. If reelected, Biden has said he would continue to pursue a long-sought ban on the AR-15, the firearm linked to many of America’s deadliest mass shootings.
Trump in February vowed to undo any steps taken by Biden to regulate guns “my very first week back in office, perhaps my first day.” A top priority is halting a proposed rule from the Biden administration to bar hunters from using lead ammunition on certain federal lands.
“Firearm owners, gun manufacturers, and our beautiful 2A community know President Trump is the only one who has and will proudly stand for their Second Amendment rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution – which shall not be infringed,” Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in a statement to CNN.
