Kimber Gun Rights Bulletin: Random Thoughts About The Trump – Clinton Debate and Guns

1. Unfortunately, it seems like no by caught what I felt was one of the best chances to get Hillary on the gun issue: when she followed the “gun epidemic” comments with the fact that violent crime rates are dropping. The Donald argued against that, and lost the chance to say “you’re right, violent crime is dropping, so what gun epidemic are you talking about?”

   • Many of us have serious doubts about Trump’s renewed affection for the Second Amendment given his past tendencies. This debate did little to remove those doubts. He tacitly agreed with the concept of a new AWB. He came out strongly in favor of an unconstitutional ‘stop and frisk’ policy which would allow the police to abuse the rights of not only criminals but those of us who lawfully carry a weapon. And perhaps most importantly, Trump failed to articulate a coherent defense of gun rights even against an opponent who has a documented anti-gun bent. About the only thing that I can say with any confidence about Trump at this point is that he MAY not be quite as terrible as Clinton when it comes to gun rights. Quite an endorsement, huh?

     • I’m definitely with you there, the whole time my primary response was thinking I don’t want to vote for either of these people.

     • I know wishful-thinking gunnies want to believe that the Donald is their pro-Second white knight, but let’s not fool ourselves. His past writing and his approval of the AW ban show that he is a D on our issues at best, he has been subjected to no obvious Road to Damascus conversions, and his response to the no-fly travesty shows zero constitutional enthusiasm. He’s shutting up about the gun issue out of political calculation, figuring that the votes of gun owners are more likely to fall to a candidate who says nothing about guns than to a candidate who slams them every time she opens her mouth. And it’s working.

       There are a lot of Trump supporters out there who deride Nancy Pelosi for saying that “we have to vote for the Obamacare bill before we can see what’s in it,” but when the day comes, they’re casting their vote for Donald on the very same basis.

2. To be fair the bar was set so low for Trump that all he needed to do was overcome it to come out ahead. Hillary came off as a raging c**t while Trump, for the most part, came off as… well, not scary. Which is precisely what he needed.

   Remember, there are two debates left..perhaps he is saving the real big guns for the final stretch, and wanted Hillary to exhaust all hers right off the bat.. which is exactly what happened, I feel

   • “raging c**t”?

     Where you watching the same debate I did?

     Trump came off as unprepared and out of his league. Clinton came off as a polished politician.

     Neither did anything to sway my vote.

     The GOP tried to send Mr Smith to Washington except they got his idiot brother in law.

     • You seem to have problems understanding that each person views the debate through their own prism and sees whatever they want to see. Ergo, why so many “experts” proclaim the debates as meaningless as far as swaying voter opinion. Understand your own personal biases. The world becomes much clearer. Unrelated, but you seem to need it: everything in life comes down to power, money or sex.

       • I understand everyone sees everything through their own eyes.

         But when I see “raging c**t” I would normally think someone had a meltdown. Clearly, Clinton did not.

         And that’s all I have to say about that.

         Carry on brothers.

       • I think it depends on how you define “raging c**t”.

         Clinton certainly went out of her way to bait Trump into saying something stupid and he didn’t take that bait.

     • I can come from the other end of the spectrum and tell you exactly how many times I’ve shaken my head at things Clinton says, or how smug and completely out of touch she came across with certain answers. I never said Trump did anything right..

       However, I can say my friend that was over watching did say that Trump actually answered questions when it came to Economic and foreign policy, while Hillary just planted lip service over it. Take it as you will, but I personally feel Trump accomplished all that he needed to this Debate while keeping his war chest relatively available for the next 2 debates.

       • Sorry Emfourty that I wasn’t clearer. I had directed my reply to Robb.

         I happen to agree with all your observations.

     • “Clinton came off as a polished politician.”

       She is a “polished politician.” Which is exactly why we hate her.

       • Exactly! That’s what Trump meant when he repeatedly said she’d been in politics for 30 years. It wasn’t a compliment. Why anyone thinks Clinton can accomplish anything in “four more years” is just insane. She had her shot and failed miserably.

         We need an outsider.

       • Mythbusters and Hillary have both proven the existence of such a thing as a polished turd.

   • Well said, sir.

     This is politics. Both candidates are pulling to the center in an effort to get votes, just like they pull to the core in order to get through the primaries. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: *if* Trump screws the pooch on the 2nd Amendment then I absolutely will remove all of my support. Hillary, on the other hand, virulently opposes the 2nd. There’s no contest in that math.

     The more pro gun candidates – Scott Walker, Ted Cruz, and Rand Paul, are long since gone from the POTUS race. I’m still supporting them because they have been pretty consistently pro – gun.

3. What the F did they talk about? Anything important? What was Holt doing there? Why didn’t Hillary say to Holt (after ever question) “thank you squire . . .”

   Do either of the debaters have any history working for the government?

   Do either of them have a track record?

   Do either of them risk indictment for actions against the people of the United States?

   Is either of them short 1 ambassador?

   Which of the candidates does the rest of the world hope gets into office, and why?

   Who is the candidate most favored by the enemies of the U.S.?

   Has either candidate sold (for cash) access to U.S. governmental policy making?

   If that was not answered, the rest of the cr_p is worthless.

   • Word is she received copies of the questions.

     http://baltimoregazette.com/clinton-received-debate-questions-week-debate/

   • Word is, the dancing lady in red is satan’s sock puppet, and she’s a ice-hockey tube-sock, not one of those hand-only ankle socks.

4. “Mr. Trump’s forthcoming gun rights advocacy desperately needs serious firepower”

   It would need to exist first. ;p

   • Um, it’s in print. In a book he wrote in the 90s.

     “Democrats want to confiscate all guns, which is a dumb idea because only the law-abiding citizens would turn in their guns and the bad guys would be the only ones left armed…”

     He has a conceal and carry permit. About the only thing you have to complain about is his stance on ‘assault weapons’, but his stance on firearm ownership is very, very, very well documented. To the point where you have to be willfully ignorant to even think that the two candidates are even remotely similar on the topic.

     • I was being facetious. Admittedly from a position of ignorance.

5. Spot on analysis according to what I saw.

6. I think that anybody who doesn’t think the needle moved didn’t watch the same debate. Trump came across as a reasonable person talking about policy (especially in the first half of the evening). While he faded in the 2nd half, Hillary came across as a shit slinging chimp.

   Trump badly needed to look moderate on that stage. It brought a lot of undecideds into his tent, especially in the battleground states of PA and CO. (Yes, PA is up for grabs.)

   He has plenty of opportunities to demolish Hillary. What he did yesterday, was show that he has policy ideas while Hillary just sat there and kept spewing appeals to authority.

   • Excellent analysis. IMHO that is exactly what he was doing. He even said as much at one point. He wasn’t preaching to the choir but spreading the net broader. We all love our fights but sides are pretty much set. Now it’s a battle for the undecided.

7. One wonders, was he really trying to win, or just not to lose? Often, things that come out of the Donald’s mouth aren’t to his benefit. I’m kind of happy he didn’t metaphorically “sh!t on the floor” during the debate and hand it to her.

   • This is exactly right.

     I think Donald wanted to NOT get into a fight that he wasn’t prepared for.

     Let’s be clear here. Hillary has been a politician for 40 years.

     Trump has been one for 1.5 years, and some would say he hasn’t even been acting as a politician during much of that time.

     How do you win, or not get destroyed in a fight this lopsided?

     You learn one technique. One angle. One attack. One. You practice it. You learn how to slip with it. You learn how to connect with it. You learn how to make it work. You learn enough that you might actually connect with that one punch.

     Are you going to win? NO. But you can at least get a few good hits in (that one move).

     That’s what Trump did. He focused on the economy.

     Do you really think that Hillary wouldn’t have “statististics” and “talking points” and cleverly constructed points on gun control? How long would Trump have had to prepare to “win” the gun debate? Ok, he’d win for us by parroting a few things.

     But he isn’t trying to win US.

     He was trying to NOT appear to be misogynistic. He was already fending off attacks that he is “racist”. How easy would it be for Clinton and her surrogates (i.e., all the media) to call him racist for ignoring the plight of black Americans dying by gunfire?

     And would NORMAL, non-EXPERTS, believe Trump, or Hillary, with all the backing she has in the media?

     No, to win a debate like that, you need to bring everything with you, like a mission to mars.

     Fighting over guns would have been like Trump planning for a mission to mars while for Hillary it would be like taking a stroll through central park (admittedly, a bit harder than you’d expect because she doesn’t drink water).

     No, Trump did fine, because he is fighting a different game than her.

     Was I saddened that he didn’t take up the mantle of gun rights? Yes. Did I understand as I watched that he was trying to do harm reduction, and his refusal to take the bait for something because the odds were so stacked?

     Yes.

8. Clinton said “there are too many assault weapons on the street” or words to that effect. This is a nonsensical statement that should be called out instead debating who gets to have them. Long guns are the firearms least likely to be used in crime and semiautomatic rifles are a subset of those. That should be response. By debating who gets to have them you conceding to the big lie. Gangbangers are not walking the streets with ARs sling over their shoulders.

9. To be fair: trump did say: “I support restricting people on the terrorist watch list and who are to dangerous to fly from owning guns, and for providing them with the means to legally contest that”

   this qualification, in my mind, at least Showed that he recognizes the problem with that position and he has listened to his advisors. (Though I don’t support the position) The problem was it was entirely unclear. Hard to follow; especially for the uninformed.

   Another comment: when Hilary referenced all the black youth being killed by gun violence and basically blamed assault weapons for that I almost lost my lunch. The proper trump response should have been-“90% of black men murdered are gang related; 99% are killed by handguns–the same weapons that our citizen police officers carry. Assault weapons aren’t the problem. Hand guns aren’t the problem. Gang violence is the problem.”

   With that response he would have won the debate.

10. Cannot cover everything in 90 minutes. No one is changing their vote. Hillary accused all citizens of being racist.

    Monster vote is coming.

    • Monster vote is indeed coming. The Uniparty and their lackeys have no clue how big this vote will be. This shouldn’t even be close. Unless, of course, the elections are rigged. I just can’t get past this nagging feeling that the counters have been corrupted.

      • So, if the election doesn’t go the way you want it to, you’ll just declare it rigged?

        Fine; what are you going to do next when that happens?

11. I hope that last night’s debate was Trump’s attempt to “play nice” in order to blunt the Islamophphobic, anti-woman racist mantra from the left. If you saw Trump really for the first time last night as many Americans probably did, when they hear those charges again, hopefully they’ll say “Wait a minute that’s not what I saw…” even if it’s only to themselves.

12. Meh. Not horribly worried about this debate. Trump played it safe because, lets face it, he’s risking more than Hillary just by attending, especially with a moderator who was actively punting for her. Really, Holt’s going to ask Trump about Iraq, but not even touch Hillary’s foreign policy? TTAG may not be excited about the outcome, but any neutral outcome they can’t burn him over is actually a win.

    Besides, this isn’t a race that will be won or lost in a debate. It’s a proxy war being fought apart from the established media through other channels. Trump will get more traction rebuking and posting memes of her after the fact than from the debate itself.

    Don’t panic. It’s fine.

    • As I keep saying, beating her like a rented mule on national TV is not going to do him any favors. He needed to be smart about this, and he was.

      • (+1)

      • But watching The Donald literally beat her like a rented mule would be highly entertaining and enjoyable.

        • We’ll save that for her firing squad after she’s convicted of treason.

      • Bingo.

    • Not really, not if you’re wanting Trump to win the election. Outside of the Trump supporters, there are a LOT of people who simply do not want vote for Hillary. They do not like her. They don’t love Donald, either, but are trying to get their heads around whether they can vote for him or not. With his repeating the same things over and over, losing his cool, deflection, sensitivity to personal attacks, and general unpreparedness, he did nothing to convince anyone to vote for him. Whatever “presidential” is, he didn’t look it. In that respect, he backslid. Clinton took it more seriously than he did and cleaned his clock, like her or not (and I detest her) she came away a yuuuuge winner last night. Sadly, an opportunity to go after her was missed (why doesn’t anyone ask the sneaky witch WHY she needed a personal server?? What is SHE trying to hide?) and a lot of people won’t watch the following debates.

      • Excellent analysis RidgeRunner.

13. The best comment I have seen so far today was that the only winners after the debate were space probes like the Voyagers making their way out of the solar system at many thousands of miles per hour.

14. That said, he needed to hammer a lot of points he didn’t. Right to self defense was one of them, emails, benghazi pretty much everything RF was talking about save economics which IMO he actually was whipping pretty hard on.

    I think it was ballsy that he did talk about how a lot of the cities that are having issues are under democratic control and that minority votes are taken for granted by the Democrats. That’s a huge elephant in the room.

15. Hillary said, “stop and frisk was deemed unconstitutional, because it was ineffective.” Hmmm. This is not subtle.

16. An “assault weapons” ban wouldn’t have stopped the Cascade Mall shooter from killing four people and wounding more a few days ago with a damn 10/22.

    Which is apparently what he used.

17. MSM says she won. Polls all say he won. He’s going to be the next president.

    With him as president I have a small glimmer of hope.

    With her as president I see nothing but disaster on the horizon.

18. Where exactly are the police outgunned in America? Haven’t D’s and R’s both been talking about the militarization of the police, and the toll that this takes, especially on minority communities?

    • The police are not outgunned by criminals. That was a load of B.S.

      But, more importantly, the government is outgunned by civilians. Which is exactly the way it’s supposed to be.

19. “.The less obvious but even more worrying problem: a federal ban on “assault weapons” would only apply to non-law enforcement Americans. Along with the aforementioned crazies, criminals and terrorists, the cops would still have them. That would skew the balance of power towards law enforcement officers.”

    If all American citizens lost their guns, then they would be killed by the Mexicrapola crossing the border every day. You don’t have to believe me, but you do have the STlivingFU until you get your ass down here and check it out for yourselves.

    F U R T H E R –

    A
    LOT
    of hot air is blown at the notion that POS Infested places like sChitcago, NY, Boston, Miami, Seattle, LA (Insert the name of whatever liberal city you want here _____________________), get all their guns from gun-rich flyover states [Hillary said NY gets them from VT which is a POS state supplying a POS state, but go with it]. HOW’S ABOUT, THE NEXT MF THAT SHOWS UP IN FLYOVER COUNTRY FROM ONE OF THOSE AREAS AND EXPORTS SOME OF THOSE POS CITIES’ CRIME, WE GO TO THE CITY OF ORIGIN AND BURN THAT SH_T THE MF GROUND (as long as their in favor of “chucking” the Constitution, I might be convinced [by them] to “chuck” the rest [at least I wouldn’t piss on them if they were on fire]).

20. Donald was Donald. I didn’t expect him to be better. I’ll still vote for him and type Hillary for prison 2016(I can’t believe Trump won’t go after the Clinton “foundation” slush fund.) Turd/douche…

21. Both candidates played to what their existing supporters expected and wanted to see/hear. Neither, persuaded many to change their minds. I hope Trump watches the debate several times over and takes away the perception that he looked upset, unconfident and defensive. I think he can do better, but he still interjects too many asides. He needs to focus on the main point he wants to make, then add selective asides, if he must. He never directly answered some questions definitively. And, yes, Trump missed several opportunities to make good points and counterpoints, all-the-while invoking bad memories of Marco Rubio by taking repeated sips of water from that glass.

    HiLIARy looked much more poised and prepared, even when she went into full-on attack mode. She never visibly lost her temper, nor did her bad brain act-up and cause her to freeze-up. I wonder what they pumped into the old bag before she went onstage?

    At any rate, neither moved the needle much, if at all. Trump needs a Reaganesque power comeback in the second debate and Mike Pence needs to kick Tim Kaine’s keister in the VP Debate.

    • The post debate polls indicate otherwise. Trump needed to fight the “rabid” narrative that Hillary painted and he did that very well. Right now, even PA and CO are swinging to Trump. The former hasn’t happened since 1980.

      • Exactly. He just needs to convince the undecided he can control himself.

      • Glad to hear there is good news for Trump. I cannot help but be analytical about what I thought he needed to be aware of next debate, but for me the needle did not move and I am still voting for Trump. I DO think he can do better next time and possibly take command of the Debate away from HiLIARy, get her rattled and wipe that smug, condescending smile off her face.

        • This is why Hillary is in trouble. There are states in play that would have been unthinkable in 2012.

          http://www.270towin.com/

        • @pwrserge. http://www.270towin.com has been a favorite resource for me throughout this election. Thanks for referencing it and I hope those unfamiliar will take a look. Great tool for understanding the Electoral College.

22. Trump defaulted to the NRA’s position on the No Fly List. He didn’t state every nuance of the NRA position, but referenced the NRA in his response. He doesn’t know much about our issues except what the lobbyists tell him that he paid to develop his position paper. If someone doesn’t like Trump’s position on the No Fly List, blame the NRA for compromising and selling us out again.

    • People keep saying this, but it’s not true. Trump has not come out and said that he supports the NRA’s position. It’s not on his website and he hasn’t said it himself. If you anyone can find where Mr. Trump says that, please post it.
      Moreover, actually look at the NRA’s statement. It’s not a “position”, it is a brief one paragraph statement that says the government should stop a firearms sale for anyone on the “terror watch lists” while they investigate. It does not provide a time limit on that investigation. It does not provide for your own defense. It does not get you off the list.

23. I’m gonna say it. The polls show the margins are close enough. It all comes down to turnout, so I plan to do exactly that and vote for Trump. Then after he gets elected, the first day in office, I’m going to call everyone in Congress and get him impeached. Trump 2016, cause he’s impeachable.

    • So you want Pence as president? I guess I don’t get it.

24. Trump did not fall flat on his face. That’s all he needed to do really. He doesn’t need to address gun rights as gun rights individuals are already in his court. He needed to convince undecided voters that he can contain himself to an extent yet still be strong at the same time. He did that okay. Good enough, but there are still three debates. The Clinton camp is getting nervous. They wanted him to fail yuge. And he did not. He will learn from his mistakes. He is new at this. He is not a politician or debater. I wouldn’t be able to do better then him on the spot. Most couldn’t. It’s unfunny that a billionaire is the average joe in this race.

25. The worst case most forget if you not vote for trump then hillary replace scalias ………..
    Thats the supergau not trump ore hillary directly !!

26. “Mr. Trump has time to review his first presidential debate and learn from his mistakes. Some might say that Mr. Trump lacks the humility to embrace that process but I couldn’t possibly comment.”

    You don’t enjoy the business success Donnie has by not learning from your mistakes. No doubt he will embrace that process. Keep in mind there is a huge difference between learning from your mistakes, and publicly admitting your mistakes.

    Trump knows he is out of his league in terms of debate skills against Hildebeast. That woman sat in a Congressional hearing room after Benghazi and tore them all to shreds.

    Best Trump could do last night was “try not to suck.” Mission accomplished.

27. “Trump failed to nail Ms. Clinton on her deleted emails.”

    I wouldn’t call myself a Trump supporter, but to be fair, he did take a few good shots at her over the email scandal. I think he said something to the effect of, “I’ll release my tax returns, against the wishes of my lawyers, if she releases the 30,000 emails she deleted.”

    That’s from memory, not verbatim. He got cheers from the crowd for it, and she had no good retort, as she shouldn’t have.

28. Wait, I thought the point of the AWB was all the crazies shooting up citizens & civilians, like in schools. (Didn’t work for that.) Now, we need an AWB because the cops are out gunned.

    It’s almost like the point is having an AWB, with the reason being whatever works. Oh, wait…

    Also, how are cops with MRAPs, sniper-systems and grenades out-gunned?

29. Trump missed many opportunities.

    #1) Hillaries fact checker
    Respobse: Mr/Mrs America please note the irony of the most truth-challenged candidate ever to set foot on the stage announcing that she’ll be the arbiter of truth.

    #2) trump in favor of war
    Response: I was a private citizen w/o military information….that war call was your jpb so whats your excuse?

    Really lazy preparation.

    But I’m still voting for him because that is an easy call. The Left is a cancer in the American bloodstream.

30. Honestly I thought hitlery came off as exactly as she is. America’s Ex Wife.

    • Love this. Smug, adept at acting like things don’t bother her when inside she’s seething. The fake laugh was beyond annoying. Still, whether she was on Xanax and steroids for the cough, she kicked his ass, which is even more annoying.
      I realize this isn’t Trump’s domain, he’s not used to being questioned or challenged, but he better get used to it and adapt before the next debate. A little humility would serve him well. A bunch of fence sitters picked a side last night, and it wasn’t The Donald.

31. The debates are really worthless since the moderators are in control. Lets get Chuck Norris up there for a moderator. I didn’t watch. I wanted to prevent PTSD from having to see that ugly Clinton thing. The Pope says he can’t support evil so he is going to support Trump. I am not Catholic but that says a lot. Especially with as socialist as the Pope is. I could really care less about the debates, my decision was made long ago. No matter what, no matter who. Never was going to vote for Hillary.

32. Pro tip: don’t listen to what Hillary Clinton says. She is a known liar.
    Back in 1996, that is 20 years ago, The New York Times, that is, a liberal house organ of the DNC, did a piece on her titled “Blizzard of Lies.”

    You know what she’ll do. So, ignore her words.

33. Trump came across like an unprepared moron. And I find it hard to believe that anyone thinks he would strongly defend the Second Amendment, as he has no interest in learning about anything, so even if he wanted to, he wouldn’t be able to.

    Like with McCain vs Obama, there is again numerous low-hanging fruit from the Democrat but the GOP candidate is too uninformed to know how to grab it.

34. I watched the first half of the debate live and then had to resort to taking the rest in in small chunks today. HRC’s voice to me sounded like the combination of the “Peanuts” teacher and an angle grinder beveling pipe in the hands of a totally untrained welder’s helper. The moderator is/was a dipshit and the whole structure of the debate was, IMHO, retarded.

    I know that people will have various opinions but here is mine: Trump did pretty darn well. HRC tried to bait him and get him riled up to look un-presidential. She failed. That, in and of itself, is a win for DJT.

    On top of that HRC flat-the-fuck-out demonstrated she has an issue with the truth. The “unbiased” analysis she had done of her economic plan vs. DJT’s economic plan was done by a hardcore Clinton ally who’s given her a ton of money. It was done with baseline budgeting assumptions, which as anyone who knows how to not put their dick in a meat grinder knows, are fucking bullshit.

    Literally NOTHING I saw this woman say last night has any bearing on reality.

    Where Trump fell down, IMHO, is that he used language on the economy that won’t resonate with most people because most people don’t understand to keep Mr. Winky out of the meat grinder (they’re dumbfucks). He needs to explain that taxes and regulatory compliance are an overhead cost that gets passed on to consumers. He needs to explain that when you use the tax code to incentivize “bad” behavior like offshoring you’ll get more of it. He definitely needs to explain that HRC’s economic policy is based on a 1600’s understanding of economics and will incentivize exactly the behavior she say’s it won’t and explain, in simple terms, why this is the case. When the cost of taxes exceeds the cost of legally avoiding them… well guess what people do? HRC does exactly this and it’s been shown recently to be the case. She’s dodging exactly the same taxes she wants to increase!

    Where he did well was bringing out some serious facts. I pay attention to this stuff, I’m basically a political junkie. I had no idea that Mexico effectively places a 16% tax on our goods while we don’t return the favor. Some more meat on those bones would be nice but that’s hard to do in 120 seconds.

35. Either Trump is the stupidest politician ever to run a campaign or he’s brilliant. I used to think he was one but now I think he’s a pretty smart guy. Trump had one goal for the night- connect with the voters without looking like a crazy man. He nailed it. Do you really think he didn’t see the obvious attack points of “Hillary? Why should anyone take advice on Cyber Security from someone who kept classified information on an illegal, unprotected server?” Trump pulled his punches in THIS debate, IMO, in order to setup the knockout blows in the next two. Also, this is but one part of the campaign. Lookup the reaction on Morning Joe and tell me Trump didn’t nail it. There is time enough to provide a more nuanced defense of the 2nd amendment. Most voters who agree with Clinton don’t know anything about guns or gun stats in any case and Trump won’t win them over. That’s our jobs.

36. Wow, chump supporters mental gymnastics to prove this was a win. Pretty amazing…..

37. In the debate I remember him saying something about it should be very easy for them to get off it (no fly list). This leads me to believe that he does understand there is a due process issue with no fly no buy.

38. “At which time the real estate magnate can explain that all gun control is ineffective and unconstitutional.”

    HA HA HA! You don’t… I mean you don’t REALLY think this is who his character is, do you? He AGREED with Clinton that people on government lists should lose their Second Amendment rights. When is the last time he’s even said the word “constitutional”?

    I get voting for him because you hate Clinton. I get it. But don’t try to pretend he’s anything other than left of center.

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