The Supreme Court struck down the nationwide ban on bump stocks on Friday that former President Donald Trump had worked to implement, but his campaign had relatively little to say on the matter.
“The Court has spoken and their decision should be respected,” Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s campaign press secretary said in a statement.
Leavitt then highlighted the support he won from the National Rifle Association earlier this year.
“President Trump has been and always will be a fierce defender of Americans’ Second Amendment rights and he is proud to be endorsed by the NRA,” Leavitt said Friday.
The Supreme Court decision centered on the power of federal regulatory agencies to ban bump stocks, simple devices that allow semiautomatic rifles to spray bullets much more rapidly. The majority — including three judges that were picked by Trump — concluded that Congress, rather than the agency Trump had directed, would need to take action in order to ban the devices.
But Trump’s statement Friday included no call for Congress to do anything.
Instead, Leavitt turned to immigration, claiming “the right to keep and bear arms has never been more critical” at a time when “our border is open to terrorists and criminals.”
“Joe Biden wants to take that right away from law-abiding Americans,” Leavitt said. “President Trump won’t let that happen.”
The Trump campaign’s statement contrasted sharply with the message put out by President Joe Biden, who issued a statement decrying the “mass devastation” that bump stocks had the ability to cause.
“I call on Congress to ban bump stocks, pass an assault weapon ban, and take additional action to save lives — send me a bill and I will sign it immediately,” Biden said.
When Trump announced in 2018 that his administration was pursuing the bump stock ban, the then-president acknowledged the power they have, saying devices like bump stocks “turn legal weapons into machine guns.”
He issued a statement bragging about going further on the bump-stock issue than President Barack Obama had before him.
Trump made that announcement just after the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, which occurred around four months after a gunman used a gun with a bump stock to slaughter 60 people at a music festival in Las Vegas, Nevada.
While Trump has repeatedly displayed willingness to critique the nation’s courts when they rule against him, in this case, he chose not to.
He appears eager not to get on the wrong side of the NRA. At a convention earlier this year, he told attendees that “no one will lay a finger on your firearms” if he wins.
“Every single Biden attack on gun owners and manufacturers will be terminated on my very first week back in office, perhaps my first day,” Trump said in February.
