‘Can’t Pass a Background Check to Get a Gun’: Tim Walz Mocks Donald Trump’s Felon Status As Elon Musk Could Face Legal Penalty for $1M Giveaway for Voter Petition
Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz emphasized the fact that Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump is a convicted felon who, though he has deemed himself a defender of the Second Amendment in the past, cannot legally own a gun himself.
Walz spoke on the daytime talk show “The View” on Oct. 21, and Joy Behar asked him to expound on why his National Rifle Association rating has dropped from an A to an F in recent times.
She jokingly congratulated him about his NRA rating dropping as the organization has defined an A-worthy candidate as a “solidly pro-gun candidate” and a recipient of an F-rating as “a consistent anti-gun candidate who always opposes gun owners’ rights,” according to The Trace, an organization dedicated to shining a light on America’s gun violence crisis.
Though both Walz and Vice President Kamala Harris have both publicly spoken on their pride in gun ownership, the vice presidential candidate did nod to the fact that his grade with the NRA dropped due to his stance following the tragic Sandy Hook Elementary School mass in 2012, leading to the death of 20 children and six adults in the Newtown, Connecticut, school.
“The idea that you can protect the Second Amendment, which the vice president and I obviously do, but our first responsibility is to our kids and their safety so they’re not shot dead in schools,” he stated.
Walz stressed that both he and Harris are longtime gun owners.
“First time, maybe, on the Democratic ticket in modern times,” he said. “The Republican nominee can’t pass a background check to get a gun.”
Once the hosts of “The View” touched on Elon Musk’s act of giving away $1 million each day to a “random” person who signs his PAC petition in support of the First and Second Amendments as a way to incentivize conservative voters in a lottery-style ploy, Whoopi Goldberg confessed that she thought that’s against the law.
“But apparently, they found some new loop stuff that allowed this to go on,” she added. “I thought you couldn’t do this, what’s happening?”
Walz responded by saying that he believes that’s just a reaction of a powerful Trump supporter doing what he can, knowing the former president has “no plan for the public.”
“When you have no economic plan that’s going to benefit the middle class,” he went on, “When you have no plan to protect reproductive rights when you have no plan to address climate change and produce American energy, you go to these types of tactics.”
While two Pennsylvanians have already been awarded the money by Musk, who has been very vocal about being all in on Trump’s candidacy for the White House, Goldberg isn’t the only one raising an eyebrow regarding the legality of the high-stakes giveaway.
Experts have said the strategy is an evident violation of the law, as it links a cash reward to those signing a petition that also requires a person to be registered to vote, according to The Associated Press.
That being said, the billionaire tech founder has already committed at least $70 million to help the former president in his run for office on his own.
The method has sparked widespread debate on social media, seemingly growing after Mark Cuban shared a post by journalist and scholar Norman Ornstein on X, formerly known as Twitter, bringing attention to the scheme.
“I’m pretty sure that while it may or may not violate voting laws, it may violate gaming laws in Pennsylvania,” Cuban’s post stated.
It included a screenshot of a Pennsylvania Department of Revenue regulation.
Since then, election law experts and even Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who formerly served as the state’s attorney general, have spoken out, questioning the disturbing tactic from Musk to push for more Trump votes.
“I think it’s something that law enforcement could take a look at,” Shapiro said on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday.
“I’m not the attorney general anymore of Pennsylvania; I’m the governor, but it does raise serious questions.”
Shapiro stressed that Musk’s moves as a Trump supporter with a major platform and monetary influence are “deeply concerning.”
“I think there are real questions with how he is spending money in this race, how the dark money is flowing, not just into Pennsylvania, but apparently now into the pockets of Pennsylvanians,” he explained.
The first two winners of Musk’s raffle were from Pennsylvania, and now his contest will be open to registered voters in Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, and North Carolina, Newsweek reported.
“Though maybe some of the other things Musk was doing were of murky legality, this one is clearly illegal,” UCLA Law School political science professor Rick Hasen stated in the Election Law Blog about Musk’s giveaway.
While Trump has always positioned himself and his campaign as strong backers of the Second Amendment right to bear arms, the 45th president of the United States is a convicted felon who cannot own guns.
A Poynter Institute analysis of Trump’s gun rights found that he told the Washington Times in 2012 that he had a concealed carry permit in New York City and owned “a couple of different guns,” and he subsequently told a French publication that he “always” carries a weapon, but under federal law, his felony convictions mean he can no longer possess guns.
It is currently unclear whether Trump does still own firearms.
In 2023, he did visit a gun store in South Carolina, Poynter reported, but Trump reportedly did not buy any firearms.
Though he was found guilty on all felony counts against him this spring, there are ways Trump could restore his right to own a gun.
Those convicted of a felony in New York can have their gun rights restored in some cases, an attorney with New York law firm Rosenblum Law, Jobin Joseph, told PolitiFact.
Because Trump’s 34 felony counts were all Class E, deeming his offenses less severe crimes, he would be eligible for gun rights restoration.
He could apply for a “Certificate of Relief from Disabilities” to gain his right to possess firearms, according to Poynter.
This a route he could take only as long as his felony charges are considered part of the same criminal occurrence.
Trump was convicted of his charges in New York but lives in Florida, meaning he is restricted from having a gun under Florida’s state laws as well.
Trump was not convicted of these felony counts in Florida, so he could not regain his gun rights under that state’s law.