President Donald J. Trump has become only the second man in history to be elected to two non-consecutive terms in office, defeating Vice President Kamala Harris in an unprecedented race which saw Democrats replace a sitting president as their standard bearer after he had won primary elections across the country.
The president-elect promised to “fix everything,” in remarks quoted by Fox News.
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UPDATE: In a statement to the media Wednesday, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms reacted to the Trump victory.
“America’s gun owners saw the threat of a Kamala Harris presidency and took action,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “Millions of ‘gun voters’ turned out to reverse the nation’s course on firearms rights, and keep Kamala out of the Oval Office. It was gun owners who also made the difference in Montana, re-electing pro-gun Gov. Greg Gianforte and replacing Democrat Sen. Jon Tester with Republican Tim Sheehy, thus shifting the Senate majority to GOP control.
“In this election,” Gottlieb observed, “the Democrats shot blanks and the voters buried their gun ban agenda.
“But,” he cautioned, “I bet they will double down on gun prohibition because they know that it was gun owners that removed them from power and they are gunning to get even. The fight to defend gun rights is not over and every gun owner who helped win this battle must remember that the war on gun rights is ongoing.
“Here is a man who endured four years of turmoil while he was in office,” Gottlieb noted, “and he suffered from Democrat-engineered ‘lawfare,’ and survived two assassination attempts including one which nearly cost him his life. Yet, despite his wound, he refused to call for more gun control, and encouraged his supporters to fight. And that is exactly what we intend to do, because the right to keep and bear arms is what protects this nation from tyranny, and frustrates the enemies of liberty.”
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Trump’s return to office in January could not be soon enough for the nation’s gun rights community, which has been under attack since Joe Biden took office in January 2021. He rode into office with a lengthy gun control agenda, most of which he was unable to fulfill, but during his tenure he and Harris created the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, an overtly anti-gun mini-bureaucracy with a singular purpose of pushing the administration’s gun prohibition policies. It is almost certainly doomed when Trump returns to the Oval Office.
A second Trump presidency, coupled with Republican control of the Senate, will assure the appointment of Second Amendment-friendly federal judges and even Supreme Court justices. It will mean a new Attorney General and probable replacement of the head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The gun control office will undoubtedly be dismantled immediately.
However, with more than two months remaining in office, the Biden-Harris administration and a lame duck Congress could attempt all kinds of damage before Democrats cede control.
In his victory speech early Wednesday morning, Trump told the country, “This was, I believe, the greatest political movement of all time. There’s never been anything like this in this country, and maybe beyond. And now it’s going to reach a new level of importance because we’re going to help our country heal.”
During his first term (2017-2021), President Trump filled some 300 federal court vacancies, and his appointees have been handing down pro-rights rulings in several cases. However, with Biden’s four years of filling vacancies, the job of restoring balance to the courts may take a while.
Meanwhile, the Trump transition team will begin work shortly, and potential nominees for cabinet posts will begin to circulate over the next several weeks.
With a handful of states still to be decided, it may be a day or two before all Electoral College votes are decided, but the final tally could be even higher for the president, who is also leading in the popular vote.
