Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. seeks to pivot to the middle on guns, disowning former comments in which he labeled the National Rifle Association (NRA) a “terror group.”
Yet the NRA is urging its followers to take his new position with many grains of salt.
In an interview with RFK Jr. on Wednesday, Fox News anchor Sean Hannity asked the former Democrat if he stood by a tweet he issued in the wake of the February 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
“Parkland students are right; the NRA is a terror group,” Kennedy tweeted at the time.
When Hannity asked about the tweet, Kennedy replied, “I support the Second Amendment like I do all the amendments to the Constitution.”
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Hannity noted that was not his question, and reiterated the point.
“I don’t consider the NRA a terror group,” Kennedy replied to the follow-up question.
“Well, I don’t recall tweeting it in 2018, but if I did, as I said, Sean, I don’t consider them a terror group, and I support the Second Amendment.”
As Breitbart News noted on Thursday, that seemed to conflict with Kennedy’s previous comments on gun control.
Earlier this year, Kennedy referred to himself as a “constitutional maximalist,” and maintained, “I’m not going to take away anybody’s guns.”
Yet shortly after those remarks, Kennedy said in late June that he would sign a law banning “assault weapons,” according to Breitbart.
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“If we can get a consensus on it, if Republicans and Democrats agreed and it passed Congress, I would sign it,” he said.
In response to his backtracking from the “terror group” comment, the NRA advocated caution.
“Demonizing NRA members and gun owners is a losing strategy,” the NRA said Thursday on X, formerly Twitter.
“Be wary of people who casually place NRA members and terrorist groups in the same category one day, only to switch when they’re running for office.”
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