President Trump Forcing Red State Democrats to Oppose Pro-Gun Justice in Election Year

By announcing his newest Supreme Court pick in July President Trump will be quietly putting red state Democrats in a position where their confirmation vote will tell the tale on their Second Amendment position.

Sens. like Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND), Joe Manchin (D-WV), Joe Donnelly (D-IN), and Jon Tester (D-MT) will find it difficult to vote against the justice while simultaneously trying to convince constituents they are pro-gun.

During an interview for a upcoming episode of Bullets with AWR Hawkins, Breitbart’s Ken Klukowski suggests the Democrat Party is actively trying to shame Trump into not nominating a justice prior to the election because they want to avoid forcing red state Senators to take a position.

Short of shaming Trump, the Democrats are trying to say Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) handling of Merrick Garland proves a justice cannot be confirmed in an election year.

Klukowski said, “The Democrats are totally misconstruing history. They say, ‘Mitch McConnell said you can’t do a just during an election year,’ but Mitch McConnell never said anything such thing.”

He explained, “The last Democrat justice was Elana Kagen, and that was in 2010, an election year. [With Merrick Garland] McConnell was saying that was in a presidential election year, that if the people are going to the polls to pick a new president, then he did not think the Senate should rush through a nominee before the American people got to pick who the president would be.”

Klukowski added, “The last time there was vacancy in 2016 McConnell said the American people gave the White House to one party, but the Senate to the other party, [which served as a] check on that president in a presidential election year. This is not a presidential election year, and the American people have chosen to put the same party in charge of both the White House and the Senate and I believe a huge reason they did so is to protect the Second Amendment and that is why there is a mandate to do it now.”

Klukowski noted that Trump’s nominee will likely be wildly popular in red states because of their pro-Second Amendment track record. Red state Democrats are going to be forced to chose sides.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets with AWR Hawkins, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.