Pence barely mentions Trump while vowing to protect gun rights in NRA speech
Mabinty Quarshie
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Former Vice President Mike Pence made the briefest mention of his onetime boss, former President Donald Trump, during his speech at the National Rifle Association’s annual convention on Friday.
Pence trumpeted the Trump-Pence administration’s support for gun rights at the NRA’s Leadership Forum in Indianapolis, Indiana. “We stood without apology for the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms,” Pence said of the administration.
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Later on in his speech, Pence emphatically declared: “As long as there is breath in my lungs, I will stand with you to ensure that the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
Pence’s reticence to mention Trump comes as no surprise. Trump and Pence have been at odds since the aftermath of the 2020 election cycle and the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. The NRA gathering marks the first time the two men will speak at the same event since then.
Pence, himself a possible 2024 presidential contender, has his work cut out for him if he does run. The former vice president was briefly booed when he first stepped onto the stage to address the crowd. But Pence quickly bounced back by telling the crowd, “I love you too.”
He also excoriated President Joe Biden and the Democrats for pressing for gun control in the week of recent mass shootings. A mass shooting left five people dead and eight injured in Louisville, Kentucky, earlier this month, and another mass shooting in Nashville, Tennessee, at Covenant School, a private Christian institution, left six people dead.
“We don’t need gun control. We need crime control,” Pence told the NRA crowd. “We don’t need lectures about the liberties of law-abiding citizens. We need solutions to protect our kids.”
”So I say to Joe Biden and the gun control extremists: Give up your pipe dreams of gun confiscation in this free society, stop endangering our lives with gun bans, and stop trampling on the God-given rights of the American people,” he said.
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Going further, Pence called for a federal death penalty statute, defended law enforcement officers, and blamed mental illness for gun deaths during his speech.
“With so much violence taking place at the hands of those struggling with serious mental illness, the answer to mass shootings is not fewer guns, but it’s more institutional mental health in this country,” Pence said.