Tony Grist
Assuming Democrat hatred for all things MAGA doesn’t incite a more successful attempt than we saw recently in Butler, I’m voting for Donald Trump and JD Vance in November. I urge you to vote for them, too. I need to stipulate that right up front, because I’m going to document some things we’re not hearing from the gun groups singing gushing praise for the VP pick. And every time I’ve pointed out Trump’s warts there’s always been no shortage of angry responses ranging from “Would you rather see Biden Kamala win?” to “Fire that idiot and cancel my subscription!” I don’t do this to subvert election chances or to get people mad at me. I do it because by viewing politicians with realistic expectations, gun owners will be in a better position to understand where, when and how they may disappoint us once we help them win power, and to insist the “gun rights leaders” endorsing them do everything they can to make sure it’s understood our rights are non-negotiable. It’s why I argue that “Gun Owners for Trump” needs to be more than a publicity gimmick just to generate votes, and actually be a body that has a direct line to advisors who have his ear.
We don’t want any more bump stock bans or worse, and we’re just one Beslan-style “gun-free zone” school massacre away from finding out who are true friends in the Republican party really are. And if Butler showed us anything, it’s that some who hate us will do anything. The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread Let’s start with what we’re being told about Vance by those leaders, starting with one from his (and my) home state.
“Buckeye Firearms Association president Linda Walker is thrilled that Donald Trump has tapped Ohio Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate, and shares some of her own firsthand experiences with Vance’s support for the Second Amendment,” we hear from Cam & Co. on YouTube. Then there are the national groups.
“NRA applauds President Trump’s selection of Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate,” the National Rifle Association declares. ““President Trump has made an outstanding choice in selecting Senator Vance as his vice-presidential pick and running mate in the upcoming election. Senator Vance has been an unwavering supporter of constitutional freedoms, especially the right to keep and bear arms.”
Former President Trump’s pick of U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance a solid Second Amendment choice,” the National Shooting Sports Foundation weighs in. “In naming Sen. Vance his running mate for the 2024 election, former President Trump has tapped a strong Second Amendment stalwart and someone who proudly stands with the firearm industry and law-abiding Americans from coast-to-coast who believe in exercising their Constitutional rights to keep and bear arms.”
GOA applauds GOP nomination of Senator Vance for vice president,” Gun Owners of America, the “no-compromise gun lobby” echoes. ““Senator Vance is a friend of the American gun owner, one who will fiercely defend our Second Amendment rights. We are thrilled with his selection and look forward to removing the anti-gunner-in-chief from the White House.”
The endorsements couldn’t be stronger, and GOA has a point when it reminds us “Despite his short time in office, Senator Vance has maintained a perfect voting record where other Republican Senators have not.” Still, asserting it’s “members can sleep soundly with his nomination for Vice President” invites the argument that you should never do that with any politician, at least without one eye open. And seeing NRA calling Vance “a true Second Amendment champion” reminds those of us old enough to remember that they once said the exact same thing about Harry Reid.
“To his credit, he does appear to have a good understanding of the state of the Second Amendment,” I acknowledged when assessing candidates for the Ohio Senate seat Vance ultimately won. “Vance wrote a pretty good piece that appeared in The Columbus Dispatch where he decried the Biden administration and an ‘unholy alliance’ against guns between government and business, criticized the nomination of David Chipman to head ATF, showed he understood both the ‘ghost gun’ and brace issues, and highlighted corporate efforts to financially undermine the right to keep and bear arms.”
A Shred of Doubt
Still, the foundation was showing some cracks, starting with Vance’s once virulent opposition to Trump (that he has never adequately explained in light of his doing a 180) and his endorsement of independent candidate Evan McMullin, who talked a good game on guns and immigration but then endorsed open borders, pathway-to-citizenship gun-grabber Joe Biden. It makes it fair to question how much of what he says and does is informed and sincere, and how much is calculated and political.
That doesn’t exactly induce sound sleep.
Case in point, he’s making great hay with gun owners of late with his proposal to “Abolish the ATF.” The crowd, that is, gun owners went wild. But aside from the fact that this would require an act of Congress and there are no indications that even with a November win they’d have the votes, there’s a more basic reality: Abolishing ATF won’t abolish the citizen disarmament functions it performs, and without doing that, just transferring those functions to another agency, say the larger, more powerful FBI, could very well make things worse.
But back to shifting allegiances and principles of conviction or convenience, there’s another Vance relationship that falls squarely in the “It’s a big club and you ain’t in it” category: His wife, once a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice John Roberts, and before that for now-6th U.S. Circuit Judge Amul Thapar and in the D.C. Circuit for Brett Kavanaugh, recently announced “she is resigning from her law firm, Munger, Tolles & Olson, to support her family.
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It’s curious because that firm is big on DEI/gender inclusion, declaring it “is committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive environment for all visitors and employees.” It also served as pro bono counsel for the Center for Reproductive Rights’ amicus brief before the Supreme Court in promoting “constitutional right to abortion.”
OK, but this is Firearms News. What’s that got to do with guns?
Munger, Tolles & Olson represented family members of Sandy Hook victims to successfully petition the Supreme Court not to review the Connecticut Supreme Court setback for gunmakers in the lawsuit against Remington. Another Reuters report called them “Pro Bono Heroes” for their work “fend[ing] off Remington’s bid for U.S. Supreme Court review.”
There’s more.
“In November 2018, we partnered with the Southern Poverty Law Center and pro bono counsel at Munger, Tolles & Olson and Stearns Weaver Miller to represent elementary school students and parents suing Duval County, Florida, over an illegal and dangerous decision to let inadequately trained staff carry guns in schools,” Giffords announced.
But certainly, it’s not fair to hold a firm’s actions against one of their lawyers who may not have even ed on those cases, is it? Perhaps not. After all, attorneys handle all kinds of different cases and clients, even guilty ones, and their function is to navigate the law to represent those client’s best interests. They can’t let personal feelings get in the way of professional obligations, right? Still, to rise to a position of prominence and operate effectively within an organization, team members have to fit in with the culture. They can’t have burning moral qualms and glaring ideological differences and emerge successful and undamaged, can they?
Pretty weak tea, some may say. We’re not electing her, we’re electing him.
True. But who has the most influence on him, what was her role at the firm, and was he good with it? Inquiring minds want to know.
Well, not all. I can hear some of the chatroom belligerent over in the gun forums dismissing such concerns as purity testing, subversive bellyaching and worse. That they didn’t know these things before and don’t care about it now evokes nothing so much as the Three Wise Monkeys, or alternatively, the noblemen in “The Emperor’s New Clothes.”
Operating on the assumption that more truth is better than less, gun owners will be better equipped to monitor the people they elect and do what they can to keep them on course. As stated up front, I’m voting for Donald Trump and JD Vance, but not as a MAGA fanboy, although I support the agenda Trump campaigned on (before he started softening his rhetoric to attract “independents”). It’s a defense against the alternative, which is an existential threat. That’s assuming they really are an alternative, which the TINVOWOOTers (There Is No Voting Our Way Out of This) also regularly try to beat me up on. For that reason, I urge readers to vote for them too. But rather than assuring gun owners we can all sleep soundly now, I instead recommend Ronald Reagan’s advice (borrowed from, of all people, the Russians): “Trust but verify.”
About the Author
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating / defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. In addition to being a regular featured contributor for Firearms News and AmmoLand Shooting Sports News, he blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” and posts onTwitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.
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