It is to be noted that this habit of persistently stretching the truth to the breaking point does not make Trump a fanatic. In fact, it causes his thinking and rhetoric to be all over the map. He even tells us that he values "unpredictability," and this means he is often inconsistent as to how and what he exaggerates. It's an orientation that precludes fanaticism but lends itself naturally to opportunism.
Part IV -- Just What does the Second Amendment Say?
As mentioned above, the NRA has its own peculiar interpretation of the Second Amendment. This piece of the U.S. Constitution reads as follows: "a well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
The amendment has two parts, the first part contextualizing the second. The first part reads, "a well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State." The term "militia" here is the late 18th century American way of referring to the military forces of the 13 states then in the process of becoming the United States. These militias were not private organizations but were controlled by their respective "free State." That is what "well regulated" meant.
The second part implies that these militias were to be democratically derived, that is, the "People" were to "bear arms" so a "well regulated militia" is possible. In other words, the "right to bear arms" is not open-ended or unregulated. It is tied to the maintenance of a regulated, democratically constituted armed force.
Nonetheless, what the NRA and other gun fanatics do is simply drop the contextualizing first part from their interpretation of the amendment. Having done so they are conveniently left with "the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." They put all their emphasis on this second part which, now taken out of context, inevitably distorts the meaning of the Amendment as a whole.
This is the kind of thing that both fanatics and opportunists are good at, and what comes so easily to them -- the twisting of a text, and often reality itself, to conform to their point of view.
How long will the marriage of convenience between the opportunist Donald Trump and the fanatics of the NRA last? Well, that is really up to Trump, the self-styled unpredictable one. Fanatics rarely change, but opportunists are always playing the odds.
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