Trump Campaign Vows to Pack Courts with Gun-Loving Judges at RNC Event
Milwaukee — A top Trump campaign official is pledging that a new Trump administration would stock the federal courts with pro-gun judges and fight for policies to allow “citizens the ability to carry their firearms and protect themselves.” The remarks were made by Chris LaCivita, one of the top honchos of the Trump 2024 campaign.
The gun event at the Republican National Convention where LaCivita spoke was not sponsored by the beleaguered National Rifle Association. Rather, it was put on by a Wisconsin-based, rising giant in the firearms world, the U.S. Concealed Carry Association, or USCCA, which claims 850,000 members and also operates a dark money “action fund” that seeks to influence federal and state-level gun policy.
The USCCA may not yet be a household name, but it doesn’t lack clout. At the convention, it is not only sponsoring a booth with an AR-15 giveaway, just days after Trump was shot with one. It also had the sway to bring a top Trump campaign architect — senior adviser LaCivita — and several pro-gun Congress members into a dialogue about expanding gun access as the convention celebrated its “Make America Safe Again” theme Wednesday.
Ironically, for an event sponsored by a concealed-carry group, the event was firearm free. The meeting was hosted at the glitzy Pfister hotel, where many MAGA VIPs are staying. The hotel was crawling with federal agents, and included an airport-like screening at the entrance, where a Secret Service member was shouting out, “No Guns!”
Hosting a gun event so soon after the assassination attempt on Trump was awkward business. The meeting began with a moment of silence for the victims who were killed and injured in Pennsylvania. But it quickly pivoted to red-meat issues for the second amendment advocates in the crowd.
The leader of government affairs for USCCA is Katie Pointer Baney, who is also the executive director of USCCA’s politics arm. “We just saw one of the most protected men in the world almost killed by a deranged, evil individual,” Pointer Baney said to LaCivita. “What’s the campaign’s message to Americans today about ensuring we maintain the right to protect ourselves?”
LaCivita responded: “I’m personally a very big supporter of the Second Amendment, as is President Trump.” The burly former Marine elaborated on his own heat-packing practices: “If I’m not traveling with the boss, I carry concealed. That’s just what I do.” LaCivita described his hobbies as hunting and unwinding at the range — “It’s very therapeutic for me.”
The Trump campaign official said he was focused on turning gun-rights activists out to the polls. “The world is controlled by those who show up,” he said. “And if you don’t vote, in my world, you don’t matter.”
The Second Amendment is “on the ballot” in 2024, LaCivita said, primarily because of the next president’s ability to shape the courts through the appointment of, in Trump’s case, pro-gun judges. “That’s what we can do to have the biggest impact,” he said. “This is what scares the hell out of Democrats and the left.” There is reason to be wary: Trump appointed three justices with an expansive view of the second amendment to the Supreme Court, who were endorsed and promoted by the gun lobby. Those justices have already issued one ruling that invalidated many state laws restricting handguns, and another that reversed a Trump-era ban on bump stocks — which turn semiautomatic assault rifles into the functional equivalent of machine guns.
Trump’s focus “from issue standpoint,” LaCivita said, is expanding the rights of citizens to carry guns in public. Pointer Baney and LaCivita commiserated about the pain points of carrying a concealed gun. A primary legislative focus for USCCA is pushing “reciprocity” so that concealed-carry gun owners can travel freely among states with their guns, despite varying state regulations and eligibility requirements. LaCivita bemoaned how “restrictive” it is to go in and out of airports. “The one thing I don’t want to do is put my backpack through the TSA machine and then read about it the next day in the newspaper.”
LaCivita contrasted Trump’s approach on guns to what he characterized as the Biden administration’s “extreme, anti-firearm” policies. Despite the shot taken at his candidate, LaCivita insisted that gun violence should be addressed by working to “curb problem individuals” — rather than “trying to ban what’s clearly been defined by the Constitution as a right.”
In the second half of the USCCA event, Pointer Barney hosted GOP members of Congress in a panel discussion. Wesley Hunt, a fiery freshman legislator from Texas, argued that the notion of gun control is dead — so Americans better get with the program and buy a firearm instead. “The insinuation that we’re going to just eradicate this country of guns is a ridiculous one. So you better arm yourself accordingly and make sure that you can that you have the ability to respond,” Hunt insisted.
Hunt is not your typical Republican. He’s Black Iraq War vet, and he strayed from the unity themes the MAGA convention has been attempting to foreground in Milwaukee. Hunt encouraged anyone who believes differently about easy access to guns to “have your head examined.” And he warned about a threat from within: “We have fellow countrymen,” he said, “that want to see Americans dead.”
A second lawmaker on stage, Kat Cammack of Florida, used the language of anti-government extremists to celebrate recent setbacks at the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, or the ATF, which implements federal gun policy. Cammack blasted “nameless, faceless bureaucrats in a basement” for having imposed restrictions on gun owners — referring to the agency as “ground zero” for Democrats’ “weaponized” political agenda.
Cammack celebrated the recent Supreme Court decision to overturn the ban on bump stocks. The fact that the original restriction had been put in place by the Trump ATF seemed to get lost in the shuffle.
Hunt piled on, insisting: “They cannot go after our bump stocks. Because the second we allow them to infringe on that, we are letting the fox in the hen house.” He then defended the AR-15 — the weapon that was used to try to kill Trump — insisting the left is trying to “demonize the AR-15 to make it seem like everybody is a crazed mass shooter.”
Unfolding outside of the spotlight of the main convention stage, the event nonetheless served to underscore that the MAGA GOP remains committed to an extreme agenda on firearms, even as they try to paint their position as “common sense.”
After the event, Pointer Barney explained USCCA’s role at the RNC to Rolling Stone: “We wanted to partner with the host committee to help execute really a safe and successful convention,” she said. “So we’re on the ground all week, talking to folks about situational awareness, personal responsibility, and how to stay safe, while they’re in town. That’s our focus.”