Donald Trump wasn't perfect on guns during his first term--the bump stock ban was under his watch, after all--but I think he knew where that would eventually lead and it did deflate the effort to pass a law that would have gone well beyond bump stocks.

Even if he didn't have a clue what would eventually happen, though, he's still lightyears better than Kamala Harris on guns.

For example, he's never actually advocated for a ban on either handguns or so-called assault weapons with a mandatory buyback on the latter. I'm not completely convinced Shannon Watts wouldn't be a better option than Harris, if we're being honest.

But things in the polls are scary for gun control fans. Harris isn't doing as well as they think she should be. After all, a lot of people hate Trump, and yet he's clearly got a strong chance of sitting in the Oval Office once again.

And anti-gunners are freaking out if this piece from The Guardian is any indication.

It starts with an interactive graphic "headline" that reads, "Biden oversaw the passage of the first major gun safety law in nearly 30 years. But safety advocates fear gun safety policy could be easily reversed. 'We're at a pivotal moment.' If Trump wins the election, here's what's at stake."

Those last three words had a red line underneath, so you know stuff's about to get real.

Yang and fellow gun safety advocates are acutely aware of the stakes of this year’s elections, as Donald Trump looks to return to the White House. The US has some of the highest rates of gun violence in the world when compared to other developed countries. Joe Biden’s presidency oversaw the passage of the first major federal gun safety law in nearly 30 years and a boost for violence interruption community programs led by the people in the communities most affected by gun violence.

Now, advocates fear that those broadly popular policies could be easily reversed if Trump and congressional Republicans win in November, eroding incremental progress made on addressing the two most common types of gun deaths – suicide and homicide.

“We are at a pivotal moment because we finally broke the back of the gun lobby in 2022,” said Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat of Connecticut, about the passage of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA). “We passed a significant piece of legislation. We are doing way more background checks. So we are at a moment where we have to convince people, based upon our experience in the last two years, that passing laws saves lives.”

...

If Trump wins election again, advocates expect him to immediately shutter the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, which Harris oversees, and nominate a gun industry-friendly leader as director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. He could also disrupt implementation of the BSCA and wind back some of the Biden administration’s efforts to broaden background checks.

The BSCA expanded background checks for the youngest gun buyers, incentivized states to pass red-flag laws and provided significant funding for community violence intervention programs. If Republicans take full control of Congress, they could repeal the law entirely.

“Not only is this out of touch and extreme, it’s not aligned with where the American people are on this,” said Angela Ferrell-Zabala, executive director of Moms Demand Action.

I don't know, I think a lot of American people will actually be in line with Trump's thinking on this, especially if they could get an honest understanding of what all of this actually did.

First, the Office of Gun Violence Prevention is nothing more than a partisan effort to put a governmental stamp on gun control policy. Very little of what they're pushing out doesn't involve gun control, which is a Democratic talking point and has been for decades, all despite how little it actually accomplishes.

Note, for a moment, how they frame everything as if it's just a little thing, something everyone should be able to agree on, but they leave out that it delays law-abiding adults from exercising their Second Amendment rights, uses federal tax dollars to try and pressure states to adopt laws that strip people of those same rights without due process, and a host of other issues.

Yes, Murphy claims that passing laws save lives, but that requires us to ignore the actual history of gun control, particularly at the federal level.

What we're seeing here is a freak-out because anti-gunners can't handle the possibility that they might find themselves out of power. Every time they take office, they start acting like they're in a permanent majority. They're convinced they can do whatever they want because there won't be any reckoning. 

Yet if gun control were so popular, why does Trump look like he might well win?

Maybe it's because people aren't as enamored with the anti-gun agenda as these people want to believe.