Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump on Tuesday defended remarks he made a day earlier, when he said President Obama is considering an executive order designed to take guns away from people.
“People were saying he’s thinking about doing it. Now, I didn’t say he’s doing it … how’s he going to do that? You have the Second Amendment — that’s big league — but he is certainly, I think he is currently thinking about doing it,” Mr. Trump said Tuesday on CNN’s “New Day.”
At a rally in South Carolina Monday, Mr. Trump said, CNN reported: “You know, the president is thinking about signing an executive order where he wants to take your guns away. You hear about this?”
“That won’t happen. But that’s a tough one, I think that’s a tough one for him to do,” Mr. Trump said Monday. “There’s plenty of executive orders being signed, you know that. And we can’t let that go on.”
Mr. Trump said he has heard the president wants to and that he’s heard it from numerous networks and has read it in newspapers. Some media reports earlier this month indicated that in the wake of the recent shooting in Oregon, the White House was reportedly eyeing executive action on gun-purchase background checks certain dealers would have to conduct.
Mr. Obama has pointed to Australia and Britain as countries that moved quickly to pass new gun regulations in the wake of mass shootings, but he has not indicated plans to pursue far-reaching schemes like gun buybacks that critics liken to confiscation.
Host Alisyn Camerota said to Mr. Trump on Tuesday that the president, under the U.S. Constitution, cannot sign an executive order actually taking away guns from people, and Mr. Trump responded: “Well, he can’t sign an executive order on immigration, either, and he did.”
Mr. Trump said that at a minimum, Mr. Obama “has certainly not been pro-Second Amendment.”
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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