NRA Endorses Gun-Control Advocate Donald Trump

In December 2012, President Obama's voice trembled as he gave an emotional speech at a prayer vigil following the Newtown school shootings that left 20 children and six adults dead.

In the speech, he hinted not-so-subtly at using his executive power to force more gun restrictions, saying he would "use whatever power this office holds" in "preventing more tragedies like this."

One of his most vocal supporters in the days following the speech was Donald Trump.

President Obama spoke for me and every American in his remarks in #Newtown Connecticut.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 17, 2012

A woman replied to the tweet, saying, "good for you, Donald. Stop the insanity."

"Trying!" Trump responded.

On Friday, less than four years later, Trump stood on a stage in Louisville, flanked by NRA head Wayne Lapierre and the group's chief lobbyist, Chris Cox.

They had just endorsed him for president.

Trump went all Guns and Mama, vowing to end gun-free zones around schools and elsewhere and saying that "Crooked Hillary" just wants to "take your guns away."

It was unclear when exactly Trump's position on one of the most highly charged issues on the campaign trail changed. But no matter. The NRA seemed more interested in bashing Hillary Clinton, the "Crooked" one, than they did in endorsing Trump.

"If Hillary Clinton gets the opportunity to replace Antonin Scalia with an anti-gun Supreme Court justice, we will lose the individual right to keep a gun in the home for self-defense," Cox said.

(A quick fact check: Clinton does support stricter background checks and the closing of several loopholes that let people buy guns online and at gun shows. She has not, though, proposed any sort of gun confiscation program or a repeal of the Second Amendment.)

But if the facts wouldn't stop Cox, they sure weren't going to dissuade Lapierre, who once argued this: "If so-called gun-free zones supposedly save lives, why doesn't Obama simply declare Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan to be one big, happy, gun-free zone?"

Friday, he said this: "If she could, Hillary would ban every gun, destroy every magazine, run an entire national security industry right into the ground."

In his 2000 book "The America We Deserve," Trump did write that "I generally oppose gun control."

But, he added, "I support the ban on assault weapons and I also support a slightly longer waiting period to purchase a gun."

And what exactly was Trump endorsing when he supported Obama's impassioned speech in Newtown?

It was hard to read the president's speech as anything but a direct contradiction to everything supported by the NRA.

"No single law -- no set of laws can eliminate evil from the world or prevent every senseless act of violence in our society," Obama said that day.

"But that can’t be an excuse for inaction."

Image via Gage Skidmore, Flickr