WHO’S THE BEST REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE WITH A GUN?

Donald Trump holds up a replica flintlock rifle awarded to him by cadets during the Republican Society Patriot Dinner at the Citadel Military College in Charleston, South Carolina, on February 22, 2015. He has said nobody loves the Second Amendment more than his family members.

It’s no surprise that the five remaining Republican candidates vow to overturn President Obama’s recent executive actions on gun control and tout their love of the Second Amendment. But which of them is really the best shot? 

Short of having them compete in competition, it’s a pretty good bet that the mild-mannered Ben Carson might be the best since he actually had some military training in the ROTC, while the rest are amateur shooters. Of course, gun-control advocates often take up arms, too. Bill Clinton, John Kerry and others have gone on hunting trips, all the better to show that their beef is not with hunting, but with the easy accessibility of handguns and semi-automatic weapons.

None of the current GOP candidates grew up in a rural environment where hunting was a part of daily life, although John Kasich’s upbringing in western Pennsylvania is closer to that than Rubio’s Miami or Trump’s Queens. So here’s what we know about the would-be commanders-in-chief.

Donald Trump

Trump boasted in January that he “could stand in the middle of
Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.” No one took him literally.

But in several interviews, Trump has told reporters he owns “a gun” and has a concealed-carry permit, which he brags is difficult to obtain in New York. At theOctober 28 GOP debate, the real estate billionaire said he carries a gun in New York “sometimes a lot.” He continued: “I like to be unpredictable, so people don’t know if I’m carrying.”

In an interview last month with Field & Stream, Trump said he has hunted, but now doesn’t “devote very much time to it because I’m so busy with everything.” If he is elected, he said he would “love” to hunt with his two adult sons who have been shooting game since they were five years old.

He also repeatedly touts his scions, Donald Jr. and Eric, as lifetime members of the National Rifle Association (NRA). They “know more about rifles...more about shooting, they know more about hunting,” he said at the 2015 NRA Annual Meeting. In his victory speech following his Nevada win last week, Trump said both of his sons are “serious NRA,” and that Donald Jr. “loves the rifle stuff.”

“We love the Second Amendment, folks. Nobody loves it more than us, so just remember that,” Trump said to cheers and applause from his supporters who were gathered at the Treasure Island Hotel and Casino on the Las Vegas Strip.