US Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump Urges Gun Owners To Vote In 2024 Election , reported the Associated Press, quoted by BTA.
Trump spoke to thousands of members of the National Firearm Owners Association, which formally endorsed him, just before he took the stage at their annual meeting in Texas on Saturday.
In his speech, Trump said the Second Amendment was "very important to the vote" in November. He said if Democratic President Joe Biden "gets four more years, they will come for your guns” and that it is “100 percent certain“.
The Biden administration has taken a number of measures to combat gun violence, including a new rule that aims to close a loophole that allows tens of thousands of guns to be sold each year by unlicensed dealers who do not conduct background checks on buyers.
Trump has vowed to continue to protect the Second Amendment and described himself as "the best friend of gun owners in the White House" as the United States faces a record number of deaths from mass shootings. Last year, there were 42 mass shootings with 217 deaths, making 2023 one of the deadliest years in history, the agency recalled.
On Friday in Minnesota, Trump said that “people who have guns, who legally own guns, love guns and use them for the right purposes” they should vote Republican. “There is no one else to vote for because the Democrats want to take away their guns and they will take them away," said Trump.
During his speech in Texas, he also attacked independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., calling him a "radical leftist" and "disaster" and noted that Kennedy once called the National Firearms Association a "terrorist group.".
“Don't waste your vote,”, Trump urged. “He calls you a terrorist group, and I call you the backbone of America,” said the former Republican president.
Kennedy later said in an interview with Fox News that he did not recall the 2018 tweet and clarified that he did not consider the association a terrorist group. The independent candidate also specified that he supports the Second Amendment to the constitution.
Democrat President Joe Biden has made curbing gun violence an important part of his administration and re-election campaign by creating the Office of Gun Violence Prevention, led by Vice President Kamala Harris, AP recalls.
In a statement before Trump's appearance at the annual meeting of the National Firearm Owners Association, Kamala Harris said that "at a time when guns are the number one cause of death for children and teenagers in America, Donald Trump is serving the gun lobby and threatens to worsen the crisis if he is re-elected".