Donald Trump's "Second Amendment People" Joke

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Part of a series on Donald Trump. [View Related Entries]

Overview

Donald Trump's "Second Amendment People" Joke refers to a joke the Republican presidential nominee made that seemed to suggest the only way to prevent Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton from "abolishing the Second Amendment" was assassinating her.

Background

On August 9th, 2016, Donald Trump gave a speech in Wilmington, North Carolina where he tried to drum up support by insinuating that Hillary Clinton would abolish the Second Amendment that states Americans have the right to bear arms. While talking about the possibility of Hillary getting to put anti-gun judges on the Supreme Court, Trump appeared to jokingly encourage "Second Amendment people" to shoot Clinton.

“Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish the Second Amendment, and by the way, and if she gets to pick, if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks…Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I dunno.”

Developments

Shortly after the comment, many news outlets published articles interpreting it as a joke about assassinating Clinton, including Gawker,^[1] TMZ,^[2] Uproxx,^[4] and more. Meanwhile, Twitter erupted with horror and humor as journalists, activists, and comedians voiced their takes.^[7]

The Trump campaign quickly published a statement claiming "dishonest media" had misinterpreted the quote and that Trump was saying 2nd Amendment supporters should go out and vote.

New York Magazine^[3] and The Washington Post^[6] published articles investigating just how horrible Trump's comment was. Slate^[5] noted how Trump's comments suggested he thinks Second Amendment supporters are "lunatics."

Notable Reactions

Several prominent political figures responded to the comments. The U.S. Secret Service's official Twitter account responded bluntly, "The Secret Service is aware of the comments made earlier this afternoon."^[8] The tweet (shown below, left) gained 30,000 retweets. Senator Elizabeth Warren tweeted ".@realDonaldTrump makes death threats because he's a pathetic coward who can’t handle the fact that he’s losing to a girl."^[9] That tweet (shown below, right) has gained over 53,000 retweets and 98,000 likes.

On the Republican side, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani defended Trump on Good Morning America by arguing that if Trump really wanted to advocate assassinating Hillary Clinton, he would have said so outright.^[10] Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan refused to condemn the comments, calling them "a joke gone bad."^[11]