When it comes to popularity, 65 percent of likely U.S. Voters say of the Second Amendment “Amendment is important to their vote in the upcoming elections, with 47% who say the issue is Very Important,” according to Rasmussen Reports, which published a separate survey showing that Hillary Rodham Clinton currently gets the nod from 43 percent of the likely voters.
She is still up three points over Republican nominee Donald Trump. He comes in at 40 percent, according to the same Rasmussen survey.
But Rasmussen also found more support (54%) among likely voters for the National Rifle Association than for Clinton or Trump.
How this will play out in November remains to be seen, but for Clinton, it may not be good news, provided all of those voters cast their ballots with gun rights in mind. Second Amendment activists are already pressing gun owners to vote, and if they are not registered to vote, the registration effort is also underway.
Back in 2015, Clinton made gun control a cornerstone of her presidential campaign. She publicly ignited a political war with the NRA, which has now expanded to the generic “gun lobby.” That would include such groups as the Second Amendment Foundation, which has challenged and beaten various gun control laws. Also on the list would be the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, Gun Owners of America and the various state and local gun clubs.
This war became official during an Oct. 13, 2015 debate at which she declared the NRA as the enemy she is most proud of. At that organization’s annual convention in May, the NRA endorsed Trump. He has repeatedly declared support for gun owners and their rights under the Second Amendment.
Clinton’s willingness to wage war on gun owners may have seemed like a good idea at the time, but this Rasmussen report suggests otherwise. There are, by some estimates, 90-100 million gun owners in the country. Tens of millions of potential voters who may not be members of organized gun rights groups, but they might consider themselves to be affiliated, either nationally or at the state and local levels, as noted by TheGunMag.com.
If they get fired up enough to descend on the polls as they did in November 1994, when Clinton’s husband, Bill, lost control of Congress for the remainder of his presidency, Hillary could be in trouble, despite various polls saying she leads Trump by double digits. All she needs to continue doing is to keep railing against gun owners.
Most significant, depending upon how one reads polls, is that only 21 percent of likely voters say NRA’s endorsement of Trump makes them more likely to vote for him, Rasmussen noted. A plurality of 47 percent say the endorsement has no impact on their voting decision, the survey revealed.
It just might be that most of those voters have already made up their minds. The endorsement might turn out to be the proverbial “frosting on the cake” for Trump, provided Clinton continues to be seen as a threat to Second Amendment rights.
If she is elected, she will be appointing the next round of federal judges and Supreme Court justices.
