Another Trump Presidency Would Lead to Gun Control Rollback, Maryland Governor Says

Akayla Gardner
·3 min read
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(Bloomberg) -- Democratic Maryland Governor Wes Moore said a victory by Donald Trump in November would bring a “significant rollback” in gun control, in a warning to his party’s base about the impact of the Republican frontrunner returning to the White House.

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“He’s shown us that his solution to gun violence is give more people guns,” Moore, who sits on President Joe Biden’s campaign advisory board, told Bloomberg News in an interview Tuesday. “There’s no one in communities that we represent — that I came up in — that think that’s the right answer.”

“Vigilantism is not a policy proposal,” he added. “We’re looking for our communities to be more safe, not to be more armed.”

The Trump campaign didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Maryland earlier Tuesday became the first state at the urging of the Biden administration to open a state-level office focused on gun violence prevention.

The move follows Biden’s creation of a new White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention in September, focused on mobilizing federal agencies in the wake of mass shootings, as well as advancing measures in the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, a landmark gun-safety law the president signed in 2022.

Since then, prospects for legislative action have evaporated with GOP control of the US House of Representatives. Biden has searched for ways to advance gun reform outside of Congress, but gun-control advocates want him to take more aggressive executive action.

Moore, 45, is the first Black governor of Maryland and is seen as rising star in the Democratic party.

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The governor said efforts to curb gun violence resonate particularly with people of color and young voters — two key blocs the president hopes to draw to the polls in November.

Moore called it one of his “core motivations” for deciding to run for office.

“There’s no reason that people should grow accustomed to the level of violence and the level of gun violence that we continue to see inside of neighborhoods,” he said.

Moore’s comments also come as Biden has ramped up his releection campaigning in the new year, including a visit to South Carolina on Monday to win back Black voters, whose support for him has softened amid frustration over his progress on issues including voting rights, police reform and student debt.

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A Gallup survey released in October showed a majority of Americans, 56%, want stricter gun laws, with 31% saying laws should be kept as they are now and 12% favoring less strict laws.

In 2023, there were more than 650 mass shootings in the US, according to the Gun Violence Archive. At the same time, deaths and injuries from gun violence declined by 8% to 10% from the previous year, the database reported.

Everytown for Gun Safety, which advocates for gun-safety measures, is backed by Michael Bloomberg, the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.

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