In September Nicholas Kristof wrote a column about false equivalence, arguing that the media has helped create a perception that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are equal candidates. He concluded, “I’ve never met a national politician as ill informed, as deceptive, as evasive and as vacuous as Trump. He’s not normal.” Mike Weisser is an N.R.A. lifetime member and the owner of a gun shop in western Massachusetts; here is his response to that column.
If Nicholas Kristof truly believes that Donald Trump is “ill-informed”, “deceptive” and “evasive,” then I cordially invite him to spend a day in my gun shop in Massachusetts, listening to what my customers have to say about Trump and the presidential election. One thing that Kristof will learn is that his definitions of words like “truth” and “honesty” have absolutely nothing to do with the manner in which my customers define and shape their views. And I think this is an important lesson for Kristof and other “mainstream” journalists, if only because the type of people who own guns also happen to be the type of people who unswervingly support Donald Trump.
I’m not saying that every gun owner is a Trump enthusiast (although I have yet to meet a single gun owner who claims to be voting for Hillary Clinton) nor am I saying that every likely Trump voter owns a gun. But the degree to which the profiles of the average Trump supporter and the average gun owner overlap is too great to be ignored: male, white, married, older, with a high-school education; a man who is comfortable with machinery and tools, conservative in political and social outlook, and jealous or angry about the “elite.”
Again, I’m painting both portraits with broad strokes, but every time Trump says something that strikes journalists like Kristof as outrageous or provocative, or simply wrong, I have heard those exact same things said over and over again in my shop. When Trump said the Pulse massacre that took place in Orlando in June wouldn’t have happened if there had been someone inside the club with a gun (a remark that was disavowed by the N.R.A.), the same comment was made to me that day by someone who had recently bought a small, concealable handgun and came in to ask me for advice on what kind of holster he should wear.
When Trump called Clinton a “hypocrite” because she had armed protection but was “against” the 2nd Amendment, The New York Times dutifully reported that, in fact, Clinton has never supported a “ban on all guns.” But the fact that Clinton’s position, as described on her campaign website, says absolutely nothing about a gun ban is irrelevant to any discussion between gun guys about where she stands. What the website does say is that she is “honored” to have the endorsement of Everytown for Gun Safety, which happens to be another name for Mike Bloomberg, who happens to be Public Enemy #1 when it comes to anything having to do with guns. After all, in 2014 Mayor Bloomberg pledged to spend $50 million to elect politicians who would not support the N.R.A. Which means that Hillary is in favor of banning guns, whether The New York Times can find proof or not.
One of the axioms of mainstream journalism is to avoid saying anything that smacks of “guilt by association,” i.e., judging people or their ideas by the company they keep. But discussions about guns in my shop don’t rest on guilt by association. They rest on proof by association: if your side says it, then it’s true; if the other side says it, then it’s false. Want to pay Trump the highest compliment? Accuse him in the pages of The New York Times of telling a lie.
Ever hear of something called “constitutional carry?” Readers of The New York Times probably think this describes someone who walks around with a copy of the Constitution in his pocket, but to most gun owners it means they have the constitutional “right” to walk around with a gun. The idea that the 2nd Amendment grants constitutional protection to carry a concealed (or unconcealed) weapon has become an unquestioned belief in the minds of many gun owners, even though the 2008 Heller and McDonald decisions, which said the 2nd Amendment protects private gun ownership, referred only to keeping a handgun inside the home. But Trump states on his campaign website that he backs a national concealed-carry law which, like a driver’s license, would be valid in all 50 states. So who knows more about the Constitution – The New York Times or Donald Trump?
If every gun owner in America voted for Trump, he would still need to find a lot more votes to come out in front on Nov. 8. Nationally, gun-owning households are one out of three, but they are probably more prevalent in those precious swing states like Pennsylvania, Florida and Ohio where, all of a sudden, Trump seems to be moving ahead. This is the reason why Trump keeps injecting the issue of guns and personal protection into the campaign: because he knows that the issue only hurts him in states that he won’t win regardless.