Avoiding Guns in Presidential Debates Won’t Last Forever

Aside from a brief retort about Hunter Biden being a felon, Thursday’s much-watched presidential debate on CNN between Donald Trump and Joe Biden avoided the one subject that both candidates and the establishment news media have made great political hay over, guns. That makes fair the question “Why?”

The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms thinks it knows. Per founder Alan Gottlieb, referencing questions it had challenged the moderators to ask, “The simple fact is that if the man we saw on stage had been asked to explain his campaign against guns, he would have been shooting blanks.” Perhaps, but that’s not the only consideration.

The race here is for “independents,” voters who haven’t made up their minds, that is, the least qualified to have a say in things. If a voter doesn’t know by now that this is a binary existential equation, and if they’re that unfixed in their principles to where either is acceptable, an accurate term for that is “citizenship malpractice.” And to corroborate that, their right to keep and bear arms doesn’t even register as a priority.

“This is the top issue for undecided voters ahead of the debate,” a Nexstar viewer survey reveals. “Of those who are undecided, 31% said the candidates’ positions on the economy is the most important issue. The second-most important issue was immigration and border security (24%), followed by Medicare and Social Security (13%), abortion (10%), and climate change (6%).”

Even among Republicans and Democrats, the right to arms didn’t register, which is curious considering how screaming headlines on “gun violence” dominate the headlines.

What’s unclear is if the survey itself ignored the issue. And if the debate moderators didn’t want to open a door for exploiting Hunter Biden’s recent conviction. Still, it’s curious, considering if any issue is going to provoke the next “shot heard ‘round the world,” an attempt at coercing citizen disarmament would certainly be a candidate.

With that in mind, it can’t be assumed that guns won’t fit prominently into the next debate, particularly if there’s another incident of carnage in a “gun-free zone” to exploit politically. With that in mind, leaders in the newly formed Gun Owners for Trump need to press their contacts in his campaign (assuming they have ones with direct access to the man himself) on the urgency of being ready to talk about that.

First, gun owners need to know that the group was formed for more than good optics and that the named leaders actually have the president’s attention. It’s on them to make sure that access is not singularly dominated by NRA, which advised him so poorly on “bump stocks,” and to do what they can to keep Trump from saying stupid stuff, like “Take the guns first, go through due process second.”

Influencers need to be able to prepare Trump to debate on the right to arms and to coach him on what the correct responses to questions should be. There are really only a handful of core arguments we hear the prohibitionists make, and he should be able to instantly recognize them and have a ready response, one that not only exposes the lies behind false assumptions in the questions and the Democrat response but educates the voters on truths the prohibtionists don’t want known. And he can start by challenging any moderator that uses the term “gun violence” to introduce a question.

I was also going to invite him to ask Joe Biden to flesh out his contention on F-15s and explain how they would be deployed over American neighborhoods and what that would look like in terrms of cololateral casualties. But with the delicious way things are going after his disastrous debate performance, it seems likely the president could be replaced on the Democrat ticket at any time, perhaps even by the time this article is posted.

One thing’s for sure—the way some are just now calling for Biden’s head suggests a set-up by ruthless political operatives not averse to eating their own and winning at all costs. Consider, why was the debate held now, before the Democrat Convention? Just checking back on the last two elections, debates happened afterward in both 2016 and 2020. It’s hard to believe that a cabal didn’t anticipate a Biden implosion and plan for this to happen sooner rather than later.

There’s an internecine war going on in the Party, with the Biden faction delusionally maintaining that his sad performance appealed to independents, with Establishment power brokers calling for his resignation through no less a mouthpiece than The New York Times, and with the wild card radicals promising to make the 1968 Chicago Democrat Convention look tepid by comparison. Add in all the factions, from hand-wringing gun prohibitionists, exasperated universal abortionists, racial grievance militants, zealous LGBTQ+ evangelists, enraged Hamas sympathizers, intolerant climate Puritans, open borders insurgents, out-and-out Marxists, and more, and good luck picking a “compromise” candidate with those infuriated by the suggestion of anything less than everything they demand.

Whomever is picked, Trump and his choice for VP need to be prepared to meet and defeat them whenever the subject of citizen disarmament is raised. Our “gun rights leaders” who say they have his ear need to make sure that they do and use that presumed access to prepare him for a public fight that’s sure to come.

About David Codrea:

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. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.