NYT Opinion: Trump ‘Raising an Army’ by Ending Gun Control, Cozying Up to Police

A New York Times op-ed published August 31 claims that President Trump is “raising an armed” by rolling back Obama-era gun controls and cozying up to police.

The op-ed is written by Charles M. Blow, who suggests Trump’s repeal of the Barack Obama social security gun ban is part of “raising an army.”

Blow quotes Politifact saying, “Obama’s order made it mandatory for the Social Security Administration to release information about mentally ill recipients of Social Security benefits. This information would then be included in background checks, essentially prohibiting people with mental illness to buy guns.”

The quote from Politifact overlooks the reality that people who are learned in psychiatry–people like Duke University psychiatry and behavioral science professor Jeffrey Swanson–warned that Obama’s Social Security gun ban targeted the “vulnerable” rather than the dangerous. The ban was another example of a leftist control that uses linguistic twists to sound forthright and necessary, while actually being arbitrary and antithetical to freedom.

And then there is Trump’s decision to be sure the police have all the protection they need when under attack by leftwing groups like Antifa. Blow suggests that what Trump has actually done is show that one way to “raise an army” is to “cozy up to police unions and encourage police brutality.”

Blow points to the pardoning of former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio as another part of a “raising an army.” He suggests the pardon signals “that racist brutality is permissible.”

Blow somehow works in a focus on climate change as well, suggesting Trump policies contribute to it. Blow quotes Politico to show that “Harvey is the third 500-year flood to hit Houston in three years.” He notes Trump’s decision to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate accords and intimates that those accords could have stifled “severe weather” formation that has wreaked havoc on city where the population is “44 percent Hispanic.”

So Trump is raising an army while causing a flood?

AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of Bullets with AWR Hawkins, a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com