Former Rep. Bob Barr is now the president of the NRA. He’s a former member of the US House of Representatives and understands how the government game is played very well. While he was considered more of an establishment type in NRA circles, I can see why he was elected even as more reformers sought to rebuild the organization in Wayne LaPierre’s aftermath.

And this year, the NRA backed Donald Trump fully in his bid to return to the White House, a bid that we all now know was successful. Very successful.

Barr is now making the rounds to make sure everyone knows that Trump has our back on gun rights.

National Rifle Association President Bob Barr told Newsmax on Thursday that Donald Trump will be a steadfast ally in defending the Second Amendment and praised the president-elect’s commitment to gun rights.

“I want to see Donald Trump be Donald Trump,” Barr told “Finnerty.” “When he came to the NRA a year ago at our annual meeting, as he has done in the past, he said, ‘I understand the Second Amendment. I will protect the Second Amendment, and the NRA will have, as president, a friend in the White House.’

“That’s all we want: a president that understands the Second Amendment and is willing to stand with the over 4 million NRA members in support of it.”

…

“And the Second Amendment at its core is all about the government not controlling you by protecting our God-given right to keep and bear arms, particularly for self-defense. That’s what the left cannot tolerate,” he said.

Barr congratulated Trump and said, “[W]e here at the NRA look forward to working with you in support of the Second Amendment over the coming four years.”

That’s certainly fair.

But let’s also not get too excited, either.

There’s no doubt that Trump was lightyears better than Kamala Harris on guns. Even her toned-down rhetoric on gun control was still way too extreme for the vast majority of gun owners out there and it did nothing to make gun rights advocates any less concerned. We didn’t really have a choice in who to back.

Now, with that said, Trump has been fairly good on guns. Yes, he’s responsible for the ATF’s bump stock ban, but that thwarted a bill working through the House that would have gone much farther and likely banned aftermarket triggers completely. 

He also famously talked about taking people’s guns, then giving them due process later, which is a big problem. However, he never followed through on that, and I think that’s important. We’ve all said and done stuff we later realized was a terrible idea, so I think Trump deserves a pass for doing the same thing (apparently).

But Barr doesn’t need to try to sell anyone on Donald Trump right now. We know what we got. More importantly, we know what we didn’t get, and that’s someone who has favored gun bans in the past, then suddenly wants to act like she’s a regular gun owner who just wants a couple of reforms and that we can totally trust her not to take it any further.

We already know that.