The 2024 Republican Party Platform explicitly defends “fundamental freedoms,” including “the right to keep and bear arms.”
Point seven in the 2024 Platform Preamble says, “Defend our Constitution, our Bill of Rights, and our fundamental freedoms, including freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the right to keep and bear arms.”
The statement regarding gun rights is shorter in the 2024 platform than it was in the 2020 platform, but because 2020 was a regurgitation of 2016, some of what was specifically important at that time is no longer the center of the discussion.
For example, the 2016 platform said, “We call for a thorough investigation — by a new Republican administration — of the deadly ‘Fast and Furious’ operation perpetrated by Department of Justice officials who approved and allowed illegal sales of guns to known violent criminals.”
It is now 2024, and Fast and Furious was an Obama-era operation, and therefore pertinent for the 2016 platform, but is no longer on the radar. The gun crimes in view now are those allegedly committed by President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter. (On June 3, 2024, Breitbart News noted that penalties for Hunter’s alleged crimes include jail time and steep fines.)
Moreover, Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has made clear his determination to protect the Second Amendment from all foes.
On May 18, 2024, Trump told an audience of NRA members, “Let there be no doubt, the survival of our Second Amendment is very much on the ballot. It’s under siege.”
He continued, “We need the Second Amendment for safety. Forget about going hunting and all the things you do — we need it for safety. Because you know the bad guys are not giving up their guns. The bad ones are not giving up their guns.”
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio, a member of Gun Owners of America, and the director of global marketing for Lone Star Hunts. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010 and has a Ph.D. in Military History. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at
