Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe Now
5:38 p.m.: “I have no doubt that we will together as a group make America great again,” Trump says as he exits the stage.
5:28 p.m.: The former president says Washington, D.C., “is absolutely plagued by numbers and crime that nobody’s ever seen before. I think we have to take over management of our capitol. All of our Democrat-run cities are being absolutely ruined and destroyed.”
“As we restore safety to our streets, we must also restore our schools,” Trump added. “We have to harden our schools to protect kids.”
Regarding mass shootings, Trump said: “Each and every one of these heinous acts depend on the same cold-blooded calculation, that the evil monster will have a window of time to act out their demonic fantasy unchallenged. The only way to stop these wicked acts is to ensure that any sicko that would shoot up a school knows that within seconds, not minutes, they will face certain death. For these reasons I will ask Congress to repeal legislation that makes it hard to protect our schools.”
5:25 p.m.: Trump calls the 2020 election “one of the great criminal acts ever,” to applause from the crowd.
5:10 p.m.: Trump says the “Biden gun control agenda is part and parcel of the left-wing crusade to weaponize government against law-abdiing citizens while letting criminals run free. … As soon as you go out for a loaf of bread, you wind up getting shot.”
“You have to see what’s happened to Washington D.C., since I left,” Trump added. “Horrible. Beautiful lawns with tents all over. No respect for anything.”
“Let’s be very clear. The issue is not too many guns. The issue is too many thugs, hoodlums and savage criminals on our streets,” he said. “… Instead of going after dangerous criminals, we have radical prosecutors subverting the law to attack conservative people.”
4:47 p.m.: Former President Donald Trump takes the stage at the NRA convention as the song “God Bless the U.S.A.” blares through the speakers and the crowd chants “U.S.A., U.S.A.”
“I was proud to be the most pro-gun, pro-Second Amendment president you’ve ever had,” Trump says. “With your support in 2024, I will be your loyal friend and fearless champion once again.”
Trump says Jim Banks will be the next great senator for Indiana and points to him in the crowd. He also calls out to Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch and Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita.
“I’ve been engaged in an epic struggle against the growing forces in communist media that are absolutely trying to destroy our country,” Trump said. “They want to release the jailhouse doors and abolish our borders.”
“2024 is the year that we will defeat these nation-wrecking, globalist, marxist RINOs and tyrants once and for all,” he added. “In many ways the RINOs are worse because you don’t know where they’re coming from. You say, ‘that’s a RINO, we don’t like that one.'”
Trump adds: “When the radical-left Democrats tried to use COVID to shut down gun sales, I proudly designated gun and ammunition retailers as critical infrastructure.”
4:25 p.m.: American entrepreneur and 2024 presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said: “I came here to be with you in person. I didn’t want to be one of those career politicians that speaks to you by Zoom.”
“The reason I became a gun owner is that the second amendment was made for moments like today,” he added, noting that he owns an AR-15.
“Theres not a person in this room that wants to see another school shooting,” Ramaswamy said. “You want to solve the problem, address mental health, ban social media for kids under the age of 15 or 16 before you take guns away from law-abiding adults in America.”
Ramaswamy calls for shutting down the Department of Education and replacing it by putting three armed security guards in every school. Then he calls for shutting down the FBI and replacing it with “a police apparatus that actually respects the law.”
4:20 p.m.: U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, thanked NRA attendees for supporting former President Donald Trump. “They spied on his campaign, they raided his home, they indicted him, but in spite of that, he accomplished things with everyone in [D.C.] against him.”
U.S. Sen. Mike Braun speaks to the National Rifle Association Convention. (IBJ photo/Mickey Shuey)4:05 p.m.: Sen. Mike Braun, who is running for Indiana governor in 2024, takes the stage and calls himself “one of the feistiest conservatives” who will speak up in DC. He says self defense is an American right
Braun mentions Greenwood mall shooter, who was taken out by a Hoosier: “Fifteen seconds after that first shot was fired, that Good Samaritan fired the last one. Thank goodness.”
“I’ve met all kinds of Hoosiers who are worried about their second amendment rights being taken away,” Braun added. “These days the conversations in DC are about ending private gun ownership as we know it.”
He says he recently introduced a bill that would prevent the president from declaring a national emergency to impose gun control. “That will be the next thing,” Braun said.
3:50 p.m.: New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu says: “We all have to have a little bit of that ‘live free or die’ in us to remember what the essence is that makes our country great.”
“Every time there’s a mass shooting, what does the left do?” Sununu asks. “They blame you. They blame politics. They make a political story out of it.”
He notes that he vetoed a red flag law.
3:35 p.m.: South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem told the convention: “I didn’t grow up in politics. On our farm and ranch, we didn’t talk about politics, we lived them. We had a gun cabinet in our living room, we had a shotgun in every single pickup and tractor. Our family vacations were hunting trips. Long before I ran for office I became a lifetime member of the NRA.”
Noem calls out media in the back of the room, receiving loud applause. “They’re ready to shame us and demonize us,” she said. “I know they’ll attack us, but if they think that’s gonna stop me, they weren’t paying very much attention during the pandemic.”
While on stage, she signed an executive order blocking state agencies from contracting with large banks that discriminate against firearm-related industries.
3:20 p.m.: South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott thanked the NRA for supporting his Senate campaign and noted that he has an “A” rating from the group.
3:15 p.m.: Former United Nations ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley delivers a video message from Iowa. She said she backed constitutional carry as governor, is a concealed weapons permit holder herself, that her husband is a hunter, and they “value that citizens have the right to protect themselves.”
3:10 p.m.: Lots of applause for Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who is delivering a message by video: ‘We’re concerned about the politicization of our economy, and the management of so called ESG funds as threatening implications for Second Amendment rights.”
2:55 p.m. : Asa Hutchinson, former Arkansas governor and 2024 presidential candidate, takes the stage and touts his efforts to put more school resource officers in schools. “The time of response is critical,” he said, “and that’s why we wanted to make sure the school had the personnel there, trained and ready to respond.”
“Urban mayors and chiefs of police are not doing their duty,” Hutchinson said. “My answer to the challenge of violence in our society is three simple words: Enforce the law.”
2:30 p.m.: Former Vice President Mike Pence is introduced to a mixture of cheers and boos. “I love you, too,” Pence responds.
Pence, the former Indiana governor, touted the accomplishments of the Trump-Pence administration: “We appointed conservatives to every court in the land including the highest court. We gave America a new beginning for the right to life.”
“In many ways today our country is almost unrecognizable,” Pence added. “Our borders are under siege, inflation is at a 40-year high, gas prices are through the roof, crime is skyrocketing in our cities, real wages are falling and national debt is piling into a mountain range.”
In what could be seen as a shot at Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Mears, Pence calls out district attorneys who “refuse to prosecute certain criminals.”
Pence invokes recent shootings in Louisville and Nashville and says Democrats and Biden have “turned to same tired arguments about gun control and gun confiscation. But we don’t need gun control, we need crime control.”
Pence said Democrats can take steps to address crime by addressing mental health and securing the southern border.
He made no mention of red flag laws, which he supported while he was vice president. But he called for an expedited federal death penalty for convicted mass shooters.
2:28 p.m.: Gov. Eric Holcomb, who is a lifetime NRA member along with his wife, Janet, touted the state’s low tax, business-friendly environment with plenty of outdoor recreation amenities.
“You won’t find a place in America more supportive of our Second Amendment than here in Indiana,” Holcomb said.
2:20 p.m.: Wayne LaPierre, CEO and executive vice president of the NRA since 1991, opened the convention by lauding Indiana for its permitless carry law passed in 2022.
“Here in Indiana, law abiding gun owners no longer have to get government permission to carry, because NRA members fought like hell for freedom,” LaPierre told convention attendees.
1:30 p.m.: For the first time since 2019, Indianapolis is playing host this weekend to the National Rifle Association’s annual convention, where some 70,000 members are expected to attend and some of the biggest names in Republican politics are slated to make appearances.
The NRA-ILA leadership forum, the weekend’s marquee event, kicks off at 2 p.m. today with opening remarks from NRA President Charles Cotton and CEO Wayne LaPierre.
Several 2024 presidential candidates will take the stage, including former President Donald Trump, former vice president Mike Pence, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and American entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott will deliver video messages.
Other high-profile speakers include Gov. Eric Holcomb, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind., and Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio.
The convention comes on the heels of two mass shootings—one in Tennessee that killed three children and three adults and another in Louisville that left five people dead.
Gun control advocates plan to protest the event Saturday, when Georgia Street will be closed between Illinois Street and Capitol Ave. from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. A few protestors were already outside the convention center this afternoon.
Trump is scheduled to give a speech at 4:30 p.m. Tune in here for updates throughout the afternoon.
Please enable JavaScript to view this content.
Does Pence realize that those who commit mass shootings are usually on a suicide mission? They want to die. Giving out expedited death penalties isn’t going to deter anything.
You’re right, but Pence doesn’t seem to realize many of the people in the crowds he speaks to literally wanted him dead on January 6th, 2021. I wouldn’t say thinking coherently is one of his strengths.
It has been proven many times, serial killers or mass killers find no deference by the threat of a death penalty. An expedited death penalty is more of a budget savings for the State vs deferring or reducing such killers.
Sure, but nobody speaking at an NRA convention is bringing up mass shootings to explain fiscal policy. Considering the context, this was likely a delusional appeal to the emotions his audience.
Baffling that a professed Christian would advocate a quicker death penalty as a solution for gun violence. Killing leads to killing. WWJD?
Read the Bible carefully. Jesus doesn’t preach for or against the death penalty for taking another human being’s life. Obviously, he didn’t use that reasoning when he was arrested. Of course he knew to complete his ministry, he had to die. The Old Testament and just about every other religious text does justify taking a life for someone that takes a life. The notion of living by the sword and dying by the sword was still respected, even in the New Testament.
The trouble with Pence is that he tries to walk right on top of the fence and won’t fully commit to anything. I started losing faith in Pence when he backed down on his support for protecting small businesses for frivolous lawsuits by LGBTQ folks. Whether he, or that law was right was not the issue. He said he supported it but when he had his feet put to the fire, he caved. You have to have principles and then stick to them.
The Republicans never have a plan for what to do in chaotic aftermath of getting what they want.
More death…good one Mikey… Isn’t there enough already? Oh, and for Governor Eric, those low taxes and high surpluses, mean less dollars for education and teachers, who are expected to protect our children. And, for the guy with a French name selling his soul to the devil, and a misogynistic, loser and user, that we suffered for 4 years, and still suffer, his aftermath of treason, get lost, good riddance and goodbye.
Remember, every day that the Trump family is in the mix is another day of regress, and another day that children will be terrified, another day they will die. The assault rifles that the French-named guy supports, AR-15s, M-16s or AK-47 Kalashnikovs that MT Greene promotes, were all designed to kill human beings at war. I faced the AK-47 and the DP-27 Machine gun in the Vietnam War. What fear, innocent children and adults experience when facing these types of weapons, must be a terror they never imagined.
Look at what we have become. We, as Americans and human beings are tghe only ones who can end it.
Marc, you nailed it with this comment.
Brilliant. Why don’t you add fines too? That will really dissuade someone hell bent on dying by bullet fire; be it by police or their own.
Once again, another useless solution to pretend that his party actually cares and are willing to do something about mass shootings. Since we dont require licenses or permits, why dont we just make everybody who buys an automatic weapon and/or high capacity magazine just promise not to use them for mass homicide. Problem solved. I wonder, since they dont allow guns in many meerings held at the covention, what are they afraid of?
Looks like I’ll be voting for Democrats again in 2024. They understand that “the right to live” means the 2nd Amendment is not absolute, that there can be restrictions on who can own firearms and that some types of firearms can be prohibited.
+1
As the great Stephen Sondheim wrote, “ Children will listen”
Thoughts and prayers, Mr.Pence.
+1
Republicans claim to be pro-life and pro-gun . Why do they not realize a gun is just another life abortion tool .
I’m totally baffled…if they didn’t have access to automatic weapons, then Pence wouldn’t have to worry about it. The 2nd amendment was referring to muskets because that’s all there was then. Automatic weapons are the big issue. But when we have a governor who says you don’t need a permit in Indiana…there is a BIG disconnect. They need to go to meet with the parents of the dead children, or the family members who are missing their loved one. It is an oxymoron to say “I’m pro-life when you let anyone have access to a gun and don’t do anything about it.