Missing from the gun debate: Trump's own experience with concealed carry

By LORRAINE WOELLERT 02/28/2018 06:09 PM EST

Over the past two weeks, President Donald Trump has convened a national debate on gun control, holding publicly broadcast meetings with lawmakers and students who survived the Parkland shooting—without mentioning that he’s held a concealed-carry permit.

Trump received a concealed-carry permit from New York City and owns handguns, according to a 2012 interview with the Washington Times, but he hasn’t emphasized it since taking office.

Since the Florida shooting, in which 17 people were killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School by a 19-year-old with an assault rifle, Trump has pushed repeatedly to allow teachers and school staff to carry weapons into classrooms, even asserting on Monday that he would have “run in” to stop the shooter, without talking about his own experience with guns.

“If you carry concealed, you are the first responder. You’re the grownup in the room if there’s a crisis,” said Grover Norquist, a Trump ally who is on the board of the National Rifle Association but was not speaking on the group’s behalf. “It changes the nature of who you are.”

Trump told reporter Emily Miller in the 2012 interview that he owned a .45 caliber Heckler & Koch sidearm and a .38 caliber Smith and Wesson revolver. “The way I view it, if nobody has guns, then only the bad guys have them. And they aren’t giving up their guns,” he said at the time.

Trump told a French magazine in 2016 that he “always” carries a gun, adding that he would have tried to stop the shooters who attacked the Bataclan nightclub in Paris in 2015.

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https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/28/trump-guns-concealed-carry-430824?lo=ap_e1