screen-shot-2016-11-06-at-8-13-21-am-900x676

Pro-gun rights voters take heart from the fact that Donald Trump’s son Eric loves him some firearms. Gun control advocates hate anything Trump in general, and Eric’s pro-gun stance in specific. So when nymag.com’s Yashar Ali discovered that young master Eric was looking to trade hunting rifles on a popular website. With His Father’s Campaign in Chaos, Eric Trump Was Looking to Trade Guns on the Internet was the result. And it goes a little something like this . . .

Eric Trump made news this week by saying that former Klu Klux Klan leader David Duke “deserves a bullet,” and then, after the remark was met with dismay, promising that he would be “laying low” for awhile.

But Eric Trump often talks about guns and shooting, even when other thoughts would seem likely to take precedence. Take, for example, the week of July 11. It began with his father’s campaign in chaos and the nation gripped by sadness and racial strife. The previous several days had brought the deaths of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling, two African-American men who were gunned down by cops (Sterling was unarmed and Castile had a permit to carry a weapon). Then five police officers were killed by a lone shooter at the conclusion of a peaceful Black Lives Matter protest in Dallas.

At Trump Tower, the presumptive Republican nominee still seemed scarcely to have a campaign at all. The Republican National Convention was just days away in Cleveland and team Trump had no apparent plan in place for it. The threat of political violence already hung heavily over the event.

With all this going on, at 1:48 a.m. on Monday, July 11, Eric Trump, 32, was apparently posting a message at Long Range Hunting, a popular hunting website where he has had an account since 2010. The post asked whether anyone was interested in trading guns: “Want to trade my Remington 40X in 22-250. The gun is a lazer (sic) and shoots small little groups using 50gr V-Max bullets and 37.0 gr H-380. Im looking for a new Ruger Precision Rifle, Accuracy International AE MIII Folder (ill add cash)….”

How dare Eric Trump engage in a lawful commercial transaction involving firearms when police had just “gunned-down” not one but two African-Americans! I mean, we should presume he’d do it lawfully, right? Scribe Yashar Ali not so much.

What’s missing from Trump’s post is any indication of how the trade or sale would take place. The state of New York has very strict gun laws and requires, with few exceptions, that any trade or sale of firearms take place through a federally licensed firearm dealer. This would require Trump to physically go to a firearms dealer and complete paperwork prior to relinquishing the Remington rifle and filling out an additional form before taking possession of the Ruger Precision Rifle. Background checks would be required for both Trump and the recipient of the Remington. These rules would apply to Trump even if he were trading the rifle with someone in a state with lax gun safety laws, like Arizona or Texas.

Isn’t it funny how gun control advocates reckon those who take the Second Amendment as writ are “lax.” It’s funny in the same sense that they will do anything to paint gun owners as criminals or, at the least, potential criminals. This is me laughing.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

34 COMMENTS

  1. It’s also a little funny that the same people who were going around telling everyone who would listen that Armslist and related sites/Facebook pages were shipping baby killing assault weapons right to your front door with no questions asked are now, suddenly, quite knowledgeable about what’s required for an online transaction to take place.

  2. Gotta ask the obvious stupid question her, how in the he’ll are we so sure that’s Eric Trump’s post, not to mention firearm? Couldn’t it be possible that it’s an average joe, the rifle isn’t very extravagant?

    • Here’s my question, why in the hell we he do anything but put this in the safe and buy another gun? There’s a reason all the rich guys I know have a room(s) filled with guns, they seldom let any go.

      So, is the Junior motivated by some minimalist Bauhaus ethos? Or is it just that having too many rifles would be gauche? I know the Donald is renowned for his sense of understated elegance so maybe that’s it…

      Hell, valuing his time as money, it cost a new rifle’s worth to type the post rather than just have the chopper pilot take him to the gunshop.

      • Gosh maybe he’s like a lot of us…If you’re not shooting it, trade it for something you do want to shoot.

      • “There’s a reason all the rich guys I know have a room(s) filled with guns, they seldom let any go.”

        I’ll vouch for that. I know a few folks with some money, and they don’t sell guns. One guy had a dad who was a civil war buff and the family room’s back wall was stacked 3 feet deep of civil-war era guns. Not hung on the wall, just stacked up. An upstairs gun room was for modern hardware. If you were to knock on the front door, when it opened, you were looking down the muzzle of a cannon.

        Those folks *are* out there…

      • The 40X used to be a big deal in the varmint, long range and accurized rifle field, but now it’s pretty slim pickings. Remington claims their actions are blueprinted and all, but other ‘smiths have told me they’re only so-so compared to a truly blueprinted action or a new custom action from one of the manufactures of 700-compatible actions for BR and F-class.

        If I had a 40X of vintage post-late-80’s, I’d probably sell it off and be done with it, then re-allocate the money into something better.

      • I wa thinking the same thing. Only thing I am guess is maybe he LIKES trsding guns. I mean husband dad famously wrote “The Art of the Deal”. I’d certainly take pride in having traded with him.

        I’m also super surprised he’s on long range hunting. I read there sometimes.

        I wonder if he reads TTAG? Eric if your out there how about this? Auction the ruger 40x and donate the money to the NRA or some other worthy cause. Then buy an AI or a ruger precision.

        • I’m by no means someone “of means” but I enjoy bartering with guns, parts, optics, ammo, etc just because it’s fun to try a lot of different things and you get to correspond with people of similar taste. I’ve made trades or purchases with people “of means” and from what I gather they like the gun boards for the same reason I do. Some guys want to be celebrities and some guys just want to be some guy. Gun boards allow us all to just be “some guy”… until we’re outed to some douche NY birdcage fodder columnist.

          I won’t vote for Trump, but I’d be happy to engage in lawful bartering with his offspring and not mention a damn word to anyone outside the involved FFLs.

      • “There’s a reason all the rich guys I know have a room(s) filled with guns, they seldom let any go.”

        Heck, I’m hardly what you would call “rich”, being retired on Social Security, but I’ll be darned if I’ll sell any of my rifles.
        In fact, I just bought another one 2 weeks ago, a Savage Axis in .308 Win.
        So now I have six, including 3 AR platform (5.56, 300BLK, 5.56 Pistol), a single shot .22 rifle, and a 1942 Mosin Nagant.
        And my 9mm. Taurus 24/7 Pro LS DS.

    • Yes, but…were they accurate that Eric would have to turn in his old rifle to a New York FFL in order to sell/trade it? My understanding, unless this is a specific NY requirement, is that you can make an interstate trade by shipping the firearm to an FFL at the destination point where the customer will do an (unconstitutional) background check before taking delivery. Maybe they were discussing a trade inside the state of New York?

  4. “Background checks would be required for both Trump and the recipient of the Remington. These rules would apply to Trump even if he were trading the rifle with someone in a state with lax gun safety laws, like Arizona or Texas.”

    Eh, not in Florida.

    (As far as I’m aware, anyways…)

    • That’s a federal law. If you transfer a firearm out of your state of residence, it has to go through an FFL.

      • Right, but the Trumps have residences in various states, including Florida. In fact, given the relative tax regimes, I would bet that none of the Trumps are tax-resident in NYC.

  5. >nymag.com
    >Yashar Ali

    Just the type of folks I always turn to when I have questions about the Constitution.

  6. I guess but “the rich are not like us”…so I’m fairly certain Eric doesn’t always go through the channels ordinary mortals use. And I LOVE the Trump 2A guys for pushing pop to embrace my rights.

        • I’m sure I could speak for many here by saying that I wasn’t there, I don’t know what he said, and I couldn’t care less. They’re hollering at each other in their echo chamber.

  8. Then five police officers were killed by a lone shooter at the conclusion of a peaceful an assassin inspired by Black Lives Matter protest in Dallas.

    Fixed it. More concise and more accurate. Yashar Ali and the NY Rag need a better editor.

  10. No thanks. I had a defective trigger on my LTR .308. Remington just doesn’t do I think for me. A nice, single stage Timney now sits in its place. I wouldn’t mind a RPR in 6.5 with a Burris Eliminator III scope, though.

  11. The crazy thing to me is that Eric Trump would A trade his ruger instead of just buying the other gun he wanted and keeping both and B not already own an AI rifle.

  14. Seems fairly Trump-like to me. The Donald has boasted in the past that one reason he’s so successful is that he haggles on everything. Other billionaires brag about buying new jets, he boasts about the deal he got on a used jet. So trading a gun and bargaining instead of playing Thurston Howell may be just in the blood.

    • Only one way to keep your money is to look for deals/haggle/trade. See how fast multi-millionaires bleed their cash buying cars and “toys”

Comments are closed.