Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Latest Trump flap obscures his allegation about Second Amendment, which seems fanciful

The flap over Donald Trump's line about "Second Amendment people" perhaps being able to do something about Hillary Clinton obscures "the substance of Trump’s accusation against Clinton: that she wants to overturn the Second Amendment, and plans to appoint judges and justices to the federal judiciary who would help her do that," write Isaac Stanley-Becker and Sean Sullivan of The Washington Post.

"Clinton has never said she wants to eliminate the Second Amendment," they report. "Even if she did, neither the president nor the Supreme Court nor lower-level federal judges have the power to do so. There are two ways to alter the Constitution. One requires a two-thirds vote of Congress and then approval by three-fourths of the nation’s state legislatures. The other requires calling a constitutional convention and, again, approval by three-fourths of the states."

Trump said yesterday in Wilmington, North Carolina: “Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the Second Amendment. By the way, and if she gets to pick — if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.” Here's a video from the Post:

Trump's critics said he was inciting violence or even the assassination of Clinton, and New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman unloaded on him, saying "people on the fringes of society . . . are not cooled by unfinished sentences." MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, a former Florida congressman, said the party should replace Trump as its nominee. Trump's spokesman said he was only encouraging political action.

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