The 2024 Presidential Election saw a large shift across the country, with Donald Trump winning all seven battlegrounds and receiving more votes in Democrat-controlled states than ever before, flipping many counties red in traditionally blue strongholds.
While this can be credited to the fact that President-Elect Trump connects more broadly with working-class citizens than do the self-proclaimed “elitists” on the left, much of the evolution is in response to the failures of the Democrats that have plagued Americans, especially over the past four years.
From inflation, border security, and migrant crime waves, to the woke administrative state being turned against political opponents and the handling of overseas conflicts, many Americans have been left hungry, exhausted, and desperate to return to a more prosperous time.
Despite the prevailing climate, and with a clear rejection of sanity and reason, it has become increasingly apparent that the extreme left in the United States refuses to learn from their lessons.
While this can be served up like low-hanging fruit to ridicule and despise, it can be used more efficiently and to benefit Americans as an opportunity, one that we pray Donald Trump’s second administration, including conservatives across the country, will seize, particularly when it comes to the Second Amendment.
New York
Gun control governors have already begun throwing temper tantrums in the wake of the election, retaliating against Americans by further threatening their gun rights despite the United States Supreme Court’s bolstering of the Second Amendment, for the most part, throughout the Biden administration.
One such example is President-elect Trump receiving more votes in New York City than any Republican in the past 40 years, with an 11.5% swing in his favor and all but a single county in New York voting more Republican or remaining the same relative to 2020. Meanwhile, New York Governor Kathy Hochul, who called trump supporters “anti-American” leading up to the election, was utterly disinterested in the message sent by voters.
“If you’re voting for these Republicans in New York, you are voting for someone who supports Donald Trump and you’re anti-women, you’re anti-abortion, and basically, you’re anti-American,” said Hochul on MSNBC.Choosing to target gun rights, amongst other topics, Hochul announced in a press conference that she had convened a team of “experts” in the wake of the election to develop strategies aimed at defying policy and legislation from the incoming Trump administration and the now Republican-controlled House and Senate.
Alongside Soros-funded Attorney General Letitia James, the governor doubled down on leftist policy displaying her insolence towards not only voters but also the U.S. Supreme Court. This should come as no surprise, however, as she had previously enacted new restrictive gun control measures in response to the High Court striking down New York’s unconstitutional gun control laws in their landmark 2022 Bruen decision.
California
On the opposite coast, President-Elect Trump received more votes from Californians than in 2016 or 2020, with an 8.4% swing in his favor. This has not stopped Governor Gavin Newsom, however, from bragging about being the top dog when it comes to gun control, despite his state leading the nation in active shooter incidents in 2023.
Californians have suffered leftist policies to nightmarish proportions, including the Los Angeles City Council infamously cutting $150 million from the police budget, forcing the LAPD to advise residents to “cooperate and comply” while being robbed or attacked by criminals. In San Francisco, crime was so out of hand that residents showed Soros-funded, soft-on-crime District Attorney Chesa Boudin the door much like Los Angeles voters recently rejected George Gascón’s bid for reelection. In addition, Californians passed Ballot Proposition 36 with a landslide 70% approval, reinstituting tougher penalties on criminals.
Governor Newsom has responded to constituents by stating he is “ready to fight” the incoming Trump administration, calling a special legislative session “to safeguard the state’s progressive policies.” “The freedoms we hold dear in California are under attack — and we won’t sit idle,” said Newsom.
Unshockingly disingenuous, however, the California governor’s record does not speak to him being a defender of liberty at all, with recently leaked sensitive data on thousands of concealed carry license holders in the state, the governor’s new 11% tax on all firearms and ammunition, being found in violation of the First Amendment by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, and attempting to eliminate youth recreational shooting sports.
It seems the only freedoms Gavin Newsom cares to defend are those of terminating life in the womb and shielding criminals from consequences.
Illinois
In Illinois, where Trump closed the gap with nearly 2.5 million votes compared to Kamala Harris’ three million, Governor Pritzker firmly secured his own blinders, stepping up the rhetoric with the message being, “If you come for my people, you come through me.”
Seemingly clueless, or at least indifferent to the shifting landscape, Pritzker is a dyed-in-the-wool gun control advocate who has been particularly incensed since an Illinois state court struck down HB 5471, one of his signature gun control laws, earlier this month. The “Protect Illinois Communities Act,” which he signed into law in January 2023, banned most semiautomatic firearms, and certain models of semiautomatic handguns, including standard capacity magazines.
Dishonorable Mentions
The list of degenerate governors would not be complete without Massachusetts’ Maura Healey and New Jersey’s Phil Murphy continuing to parade the anti-Second Amendment agenda which must be deafening as it echoes the empty caverns between their ears, at least to the extent that they are unable to hear the winds of change.
Trump swung 8.7% favor in Massachusetts while topping 10.1% among New Jersey constituants. Speaking of possible White House Second Amendment policies, Murphy vowed, “If it’s contrary to our values, we will fight to the death,” an ominous statement in contrast to then President Trump telling protesters to “march peacefully” in January 2021.
With voters sending a clear message to state and federal lawmakers earlier this month, it seems the left has not received the memo, as these governors and activist groups overflowing with useful idiots continue to push the same policies and rhetoric that got them here in the first place.
While they reject the voices of Americans as the progressive drum beats on under the guise of defending freedom, someone may want to advise this governor’s collective of their abysmal record when it comes to recognizing the inalienable and constitutionally protected rights of their constituents, particularly the Second Amendment.
Taking Advantage
With the Republican Party in control of the White House, House, and Senate come January, one might think that conservatives have it made in the shade, but make no mistake, we’ve been here before and it wasn’t quite that way. In fact, President Trump was not a staunch supporter of the Second Amendment during his first administration as some might offer. Keep in mind that I don’t think he is against gun rights, but rather is not well-versed in the gun debate and needs to plant his feet more firmly on the issue.
One such example was President Trump’s directing the ATF to ban bump stocks. Given that this debate arose after the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting that left 58 people dead, emotions were extremely high at the time with Democrats desperate to stand atop the bodies and pass any measure they could push from their anti-Second Amendment playbook.
Trump, on the other hand, seemingly seeing bump stocks as a harmless compromise to show he’s reasonable without giving up too much, took the bait without understanding that there is no compromising with these people and that they will never stop until American gun rights are a footnote in history.
On February 28, 2018, President Trump once again did not grasp the implications of his words in the aftermath of the school shooting in Parkland, Florida. When asked about due process as it pertains to the gun rights of those who may be suffering from mental illness, Trump responded by saying, “Take the firearms first and then go to court,” a statement that will live in infamy and one which he never officially walked back.
At the same time, he also promised his administration would “work on getting the age [of commercial gun sales] up to 21 instead of 18.”
Trump also suggested support for expanding federal background check laws, including universal background checks, however, he later threatened to veto two House bills on the matter if they made it past the Senate. This isn’t to say that the Second Amendment did not see victories under Trump, because it did.
President Trump repealed the Social Security Administration Rule, an Obama-era measure that would have allowed names of beneficiaries with non-violent mental health conditions to be submitted to the FBI NICS database, unjustly targeting citizens without due process. The Trump administration also provided guidance on a case that allowed a company to publish blueprints for 3D-printed guns online, supported national reciprocity even though it did not pass, and removed the United States from the UN’s Arms Trade Treaty in 2019, protecting American gun rights from international regulation.
Arguably, his biggest contribution to the Second Amendment was the appointment of over 200 conservative federal judges, including Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. Their record has not been flawless, however, especially in the case of Amy Coney Barrett, who sided with Democrats in United States v. Rahimi, a case bringing into question whether people under a domestic violence civil restraining order have the right to own a gun, and her recent break with conservatives during the VanDerStok hearing on homemade firearms in early October.
Otherwise, the appointment of these three justices has benefited Second Amendment rights in multiple cases, with the Bruen decision being a key Constitutional win. When Trump took office in 2017, assault weapons bans existed in California, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey. Only in the case of New Jersey was the ban ruled unconstitutional and overturned as of 2024, with the state now restricting assault weapons to those who acquire a permit.
President Trump, in his first administration, took the view that states can act as they want, overlooking the fact that this does not give them license to violate the Constitutional rights of Americans. As a result, blue states continued to beef up gun control regulations leading to seven additional states passing assault weapons bans during the Biden administration, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Minnesota, Virginia, and Washington.
Then there was the attempt on Donald Trump’s life while speaking at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on July 13th, 2024. The shooter nearly succeeded, hitting the now President-Elect in the ear using an AR-15. Since that day, Trump has spoken more openly about the Second Amendment and his firm support of American gun rights.
Perhaps having learned his lessons from dealing with Democrats in his first four years, and certainly having learned some lessons from them after leaving the Oval Office, his stance appears to be more grounded on the subject, and he has already re-acquired his sights on national reciprocity. “I will protect the right of self-defense everywhere it is under siege… And I will sign concealed carry reciprocity. Your Second Amendment does not end at the state line,” according to the newly invigorated President-Elect.