Former President Donald Trump "stuck to his guns" regarding Second Amendment rights, says former GOP Rep. Devin Nunes.
"President Trump has been a strong supporter of the Second Amendment," Nunes said Friday during an appearance on Newsmax TV's "The Chris Salcedo Show" ahead of Trump's appearance at the National Rifle Association's annual meeting in Indianapolis.
"I think if you look back in 2015 and 2016 when he was first running for office a lot of people were concerned because here was this New York City Hollywood billionaire on the show 'Apprentice,' was he really going to stick to his guns, no pun intended, and he did that.
"He did that with the Supreme Court justice nominees, he did that on the abortion issue, and so I think there's no question that he should receive a very warm welcome today by the NRA," he added.
Democrats and Republicans across the country continue to spar over gun rights as the number of gun violence deaths nationwide has risen to 11,767 so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
Legislation in state capitals across the nation this week highlights the red-blue divide on guns.
In Washington state, Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee is expected to sign, as early as this week, legislation going through the Democrat-majority state Legislature that would ban many semi-automatic rifles, including AR-15s and other rifles that fire one bullet per trigger pull and automatically reload. The bill passed both the state House and Senate but needs an additional vote in the House.
In Florida, a bill passed by the Republican-dominated statehouse allows people to carry concealed firearms without a permit, and without training or a background check. Signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis this month, it takes effect July 1.
Nunes says people need to "calm down" concerning gun rights.
"When there's a tragedy the politicians want to move quickly to do something, anything just to do it and I saw that throughout my career. I would always have to tell people, look let's calm down," he said.
"It's not even the gun issue I mean it's basically every single issue; there always needs to be some immediate knee-jerk reaction which often leads to very poor policies and when there's not proper planning done we end up with bad policy and I think we saw that recently with this going after TikTok … we need to get rid of TikTok but we can't do it so hastily that we may jeopardize places like TruthSocial or Rumble for that matter where you put the government in charge of making these decisions."
Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.
Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.