President Donald Trump signed an order to stop the ratification process on a proposed global arms trade treaty that had been negotiated during the Obama administration. (Screen snip, YouTube, Global News)
President Donald Trump’s public signing of withdrawal from a global arms treaty immediately infuriated the Left, while an audience of about 15,000 National Rifle Association members broke out in cheers Friday.
The president inked a document during his appearance at the NRA’s annual Leadership Forum. American gun owners have been opposed to the treaty, which has never been ratified by the United States, despite support by the Obama administration. But it sat gathering dust in the Republican Senate, and Trump told the roaring crowd that while he remains in office, their gun rights are secure.
“We will never allow foreign bureaucrats to trample on your Second Amendment freedom,” the president promised.
Reaction from the media was swift. The Washington Post declared in a headline, “During NRA speech, Trump drops out of another global arms treaty.”
While treaty supporters have reacted as though the sky was falling, NRA’s Chris Cox, executive director of the Institute for Legislative Action, was delighted.
“Today in front of 15,000 NRA members,” Cox said in a statement, “President Trump once again demonstrated his commitment to our Second Amendment freedoms and American Sovereignty. His commitment to un-sign the anti-gun United Nations Arms Trade Treaty that was forced on us by John Kerry and Barrack Obama, gives NRA members one more reason to enthusiastically support his presidency. Donald Trump isn’t afraid to stand on the side of freedom and defend our God -given right to self-defense and we couldn’t be prouder to stand with him.”
Tens of thousands of NRA members are gathering in Indianapolis this weekend for the 148th annual convention. On Saturday, the annual members’ meeting will be held, and the exhibit hall with “15 acres of guns and gear” will be jammed.
Trump’s appearance was a high point of the convention, and his revocation of “America’s signature from this badly misguided treaty” will be remembered.
The president’s warm reception did not impress Michael Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety, the gun prohibition lobby group founded by the anti-gun billionaire in New York. It issued a statement—seeking contributions—that called the NRA a “scandal-ridden gun lobby.” They also said Trump is “the gun lobby’s most reliable ally.”
That didn’t seem to bother anybody at the Indianapolis convention.
When Trump referred to reporters covering the event as “the fake news,” the audience groaned and cheered simultaneously. There clearly was no love lost for the dominant media, which gun owners believe is biased against the Second Amendment.
During Saturday’s event, anti-gun protesters will gather somewhere near the convention center, but they will not likely drown the enthusiasm of the much larger crowd heading inside.
MEANWHILE, about 1,900 miles to the west in Olympia, Washington, gun rights activists will gather on the Capitol steps for the second annual “March For Our Rights” to protest gun control in the Evergreen State. Some 2,500 people are expected for the Saturday event.
Forty miles to the north, thousands more will attend the weekend Washington Arms Collectors’ gun show at the fairgrounds in Puyallup.
For gun control proponents, it’s going to be a maddening day.
