My take on the Donald Trump 2nd amendment faux controversy.

Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Wilmington North Carolina. AP.

Once again the media has completely blown something Donald Trump said out of context to make him look bad. This time they have gone so far as to say that Trump called for the assassination of Hillary Clinton or any Supreme Court judges. You won't find an unbiased accounting of this story in the media. This AP story on the Washington Post is the best I could find and it was still anti-Trump. 

It's important to note that the media is trying to paint what Trump said completely different then what he said in reality. They claim that he threatened violence against Hillary Clinton, that he was advocating murder. That is, quite frankly, completely insane. When you put the speech into context it's clear that the media is freaking out about one second of comments in a larger point about gun rights. He wasn't advocating for anything and even said that the whole situation would be terrible. Here is the speech in context:

See, it's nothing! He said that the "2nd amendment people" could stop Hillary Clinton. He didn't say anything about stopping her with violence, he only said that perhaps that she could be stopped and that the whole situation was terrible. Only a politically motivated and biased person could read that as a call for assassination or violence. 

In short, the left hears what it wants to hear. Trump says that there may be other ways to stop Hillary Clinton from eviscerating the 2nd Amendment and the media jumps to violence. In context it's clear he's talking about political pressure from groups like the NRA. No violence involved. Given that this is Trump we are talking about here, if he wanted to call for violence against Hillary Clinton he would do so, unambiguously. This is a total non-issue blown up out of nothing. 

And the media is completely covering for Hillary Clinton on the 2nd Amendment. Though she claims that she doesn't want to repeal the 2nd Amendment, she does want a de-facto ban on the guns I own and want to own. Magazine capacity limits, which she supports, would be a ban on my handgun which carries 16 rounds (most mag bans are for 15, 10 or even 7 rounds as a limit). The assault weapon ban, which she wants to resurrect, would ban pretty much any rifle I would want to buy and also would ban America's most popular selling rifle, the AR-15. To claim she supports the 2nd Amendment is more of a stretch then, well, saying that Trump wants to assassinate Clinton. 

In short, the media is lying through there teeth. They aren't even trying to make it subtle anymore. They are out and out trying to lie to people right to their faces by saying things that are not true if you put them into context. They are doing everything in their power to try and destroy Donald Trump. The sad part is that it seems to be working. Trump has taken a hit in the polls lately. I think he will recover but it is incredibly hard to campaign when every single statement you make is deliberately misinterpreted like this.  

The worst thing is that there isn't anything anyone can do to stop them. Trump can't call them out on their lies because they will just spin it against him. Other Republicans can't do much either because then they will get attacked as well. Normal people like me can't do much either. Sure I can decide to not read the worst offenders, but I have to read some kind of news if for this blog if nothing else. And even if I dumped the media entirely, millions of others will not. 

I really do think that they should loosen up the libel and slander laws. That won't happen unless Trump wins and even then he would face massive resistance. But it's clear to me that the media can get away with anything these days. They have painted Donald Trump as a racist, sexist and violent man and there is little he can do to counter those attacks legally, even though they aren't true. In a perfect world there would be more Peter Thiel's out there bankrupting dishonest media companies through lawsuits, but even that solution can't hurt the biggest offenders...