HARRISBURG — Former President Donald Trump returned to Pennsylvania on Friday, using his first appearance in the critical swing state this election year to tout his support for gun owners and to bash President Joe Biden and others who have pressed for tougher gun legislation.
Headlining at the Great American Outdoor Show, a National Rifle Association-sponsored event here, Mr. Trump’s eighth address to NRA members brought the fight over the Second Amendment and gun violence to Pennsylvania, a must-win battleground for both Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden that is consistently listed among the nation’s top gun ownership states.
“Your Second Amendment will always be safe with me as your president,” Mr. Trump told the raucous crowd. “When I’m back in the Oval Office, no one will lay a finger on your firearms.”
Coming about a month after Mr. Biden spoke near Valley Forge to denounce Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, Mr. Trump also paid homage to Pennsylvania’s roots in the nation’s founding and its history of industrial prowess — which he claimed was weakened under Mr. Biden.
“Strong Pennsylvania steel was poured into the backbone of our country, and now U.S. Steel was just sold to Japan,” he said, igniting boos. “How do you feel about that? I wouldn’t approve that deal.”
The proposed sale of U.S. Steel to Nippon Steel remains under regulatory and other review.
But Mr. Trump’s pledges to protect gun rights drew the loudest cheers.
Mr. Trump claimed a second Biden administration would mean “hundreds of radical left judges waging war against gun owners” paired with a concerted effort to “confiscate your guns and violate your right to self defense.”
“If Joe Biden is re-elected, your gun rights will be gone,” he said. “The sad thing is the bad guys aren’t giving up they’re guns. Every single Biden attack on gun owners and manufactures will be terminated my first week in office, perhaps my first day.”
Vince Galko, a Republican strategist based in northeastern Pennsylvania, called it a “home run stop” for the former president.
“He’s giving red meat to a red-meat audience,” he said. “There’s no stronger state for hunters and firearm owners than Pennsylvania.”
Mr. Biden, state and national Democrats, meanwhile, jumped at the chance to accuse the former president of pandering to the powerful gun lobby and firearms manufacturers.
The NRA spent more on politics in 2016 — when Mr. Trump beat Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania and went on to win the White House — than any other interest group, $55 million in independent expenditures, political action committee contributions and communications with its members. according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based research group. The NRA followed that up in 2020 with almost $30 million in spending — more than a third of it in ads against Mr. Biden.
Ahead of Mr. Trump’s speech, Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., joined a Biden campaign press call to denounce the Harrisburg event as a “jamboree of gun nuts.”
Mr. Fetterman acknowledged that Mr. Trump is popular and “is going to connect” with voters in his home state. But he told reporters the choice is simple for voters come November: do you want more assault weapons and deaths in the country, or fewer?
“When people are going to have that choice in the voting booth, what kind of four years do we want, I believe the president is going to carry Pennsylvania just like he did in 2020,” he said. “It’s going to be these kinds of events that are going to really spotlight the kind of stark choice that we have in Pennsylvania and in the nation.”
The Democratic National Committee on Friday morning announced plans to launch a billboard campaign in Harrisburg highlighting what they described as Mr. Trump’s dismissive comments to victims of gun violence and their families, accusing him of telling them to “Get over it” after a school shooting in Iowa earlier this year.
Mr. Trump in a Jan. 5 rally condemned the shooting and expressed support for families, but said, “we have to get over it, we have to move forward.”
“Pennsylvanians are no strangers to the tragedies of the gun violence epidemic and they haven’t forgotten how Donald Trump put the gun lobby over their safety over and over again,” said state Sen. Sharif Street, the Pennsylvania Democratic Party chair. “The same Trump that made the gun violence epidemic worse in his first term and told victims of gun violence to ‘get over it’ is running to block measures that would help protect Pennsylvania’s families and communities and even roll back the bipartisan progress President Biden and Vice President Harris have made on common sense gun safety solutions.”
President Biden in 2022 signed a bipartisan bill that expanded background checks for buyers under 21, invested in mental health services and tightened rules on gun seller licenses. The bill marked the first substantial federal gun legislation since 1994’s assault weapons ban, but Mr. Biden and Democrats in Congress continue to push for renewing the ban and implementing universal background checks — efforts that have met fierce opposition among gun rights advocates and Republicans in Congress. The Biden administration also created an office focused on preventing gun violence.
Mr. Trump hinted multiple times after mass shootings that he would support stronger background checks. But in 2019 he threatened to veto a bill that called for universal background checks on most gun purchases and transfers. Mr. Trump also said states, not Congress, should decide on any potential age limits on assault weapons purchases.
Early in his administration, Mr. Trump rolled back an Obama administration rule that made it more difficult for people with mental illness to buy guns. The Trump administration later banned bump stocks, which allow semiautomatic weapons to fire more quickly, after the Parkland, Fla., mass shooting. The former president has threatened to rollback bipartisan gun safety measures if re-elected, and the Biden campaign said Mr. Trump will push for more guns in schools and a national concealed carry permit law.
Mr. Trump’s address Friday comes as Gov. Josh Shapiro is pressing for a $100 million investment to combat gun violence. That includes a request from the CeaseFirePA to inspect gun dealers to ensure they aren’t enabling firearm trafficking, according to the advocacy group’s executive director, Adam Garber.
“Last year, Gov. Shapiro proposed a similar amount, but Senate Republicans slashed it to just $40 million,” he said. “I know it sounds like a lot, but with 1,900 lives lost in 2022 and thousands more injured by firearms, we need the General Assembly to know public safety is a top priority.”
While support for Trump among Pennsylvania Republicans has slightly waned according to recent polls, GOP strategists on Friday said the visit to a Keystone State gun show would serve as a good reminder that Mr. Trump supports gun owners.
“It’s a good place for him to be today,” said longtime Harrisburg-based GOP consultant Christopher Nicholas. “Pennsylvania has more per capita members of the NRA than any other state in the country. There are large swaths of the state where that issue doesn’t help you and there are large swaths where it definitely does. And there’s a stark contrast between he and President Biden on this issue.”
Mr. Galko said Democrats have made inroads for years with independents and some Republicans on gun control in many parts of the country where people weren’t brought up with guns.
“But most Pennsylvanians grew up with gun racks in their homes or guns in their grandfather’s truck,” he said. “Having a hunting rifle is no different than having a tool in your household, and that group will never go for the Biden message.”
This story will be updated.
Benjamin Kail: bkail@post-gazette.com; @BenKail
First Published: February 10, 2024, 12:55 a.m.
Updated: February 10, 2024, 5:13 p.m.